The Argosy — page 80: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Far Normandy. 65 centre doorway, has succeeded better in giving the true feeling which this grand west front is capable of inspiring. He held his breath and hushed his tones as he looked, and, with the fervour and inconsistency of enthusiasm and impulse, declared he had never seen anything to equal it. He walked solemnly and slowly towards it, then solemnly and slowly away from it, a perform- ance about five times repeated. He inclined his head to the right and then to the left ; and then as far as possible turned it upside down. He converted his features into fifty different expressions of amazement and admiration, that on the stage would have made his fortune ; and he repeated with the regularity of a rehearsal, that he was amazed. He pronounced the word “sublime!” with more in- tonations than a Chinese ever imagined or invented; until, for very weariness, I began to feel my own ardour cooling. And yet I think it was as lovely as he thought it, and deserved all the wild enthusiasm he gave to it. | As we saw it in the soft and waning light, with rosy, fleecy clouds reflecting the glory of a distant and invisible sunset, it really looked an unearthly vision. It was like a huge and magnificent piece of fretwork, that must have come down from the skies, for it could hardly have been raised by man. One almost expected to see it dis- appear again into celestial regions, for which it seemed so well fitted. The central doorway was deep and carved, and bore that exquisite and crumbling look that nothing but age bestows. The whole Gothic front is of vast proportions, and 1s singularly rich in sculptures and florid decorations. Many have found fault with it as being too richly and profusely ornamented ; but the whole has been so toned down by age, is so wonderfully subdued and refined, is altogether in such perfect taste, that the objection cannot now be admitted. The plainness of severe Gothic, the arched outlines of the Romanesque may and do possess a beauty and charm of which one can never tire. But it is equally impossible to tire of such rich and rare adorn- ment as this facade of Rouen Cathedral, softened and subdued by time to the refinement and effect of lace-work ; impossible to grow weary of it, or to bestow upon it anything but praise. It has as much its place in architecture as the severest, most simple and unadorned examples. The central porch, originally of the purest type of early work, was embellished with all its present graceful and flamboyant decorations by the Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, the favourite of Louis XII. The first Bishop of Rouen was St. Mellon, a native of Wales. ‘The first Christian church was built on the site of the present one, A.D. 207; to be rebuilt in the year 400. It was destroyed in 841; and was again rebuilt in 912. ‘The building was completed, and William of Normandy was present at its dedication in 1063: three years before the Norman Conquest. It was burnt down in 1200; and for four hundred years from that date, the present edifice was MOL. XIX. EF EOMNGOOOKS im