color, the two aisles lay to right and left in shadow so deep that the
faint gray outlines of their hundred shafts were scarcely visible in
the gloom. I gazed at the marvelous arcades, the scroll-work, the
garlands, the curving lines, and arabesques interwoven and interlaced,
and strangely lighted, until by sheer dint of gazing my perceptions
became confused, and I stood upon the borderland between illusion and
reality, taken in the snare set for the eyes, and almost light-headed
by reason of the multitudinous changes of the shapes about me.

Imperceptibly a mist gathered about the carven stonework, and I only
beheld it through a haze of fine golden dust, like the motes that
hover in the bars of sunlight slanting through the air of a chamber.
Suddenly the stone lacework of the rose windows gleamed through this
vapor that had made all forms so shadowy. Every moulding, the edges of
every carving, the least detail of the sculpture was dipped in silver.
The sunlight kindled fires in the stained windows, their rich colors
sent out glowing sparks of light. The shafts began to tremble, the
capitals were gently shaken. A light shudder as of delight ran through
the building, the stones were loosened in their setting, the
wall-spaces swayed with graceful caution. Here and there a ponderous
pier moved as solemnly as a dowager when she condescends to complete a
quadrille at the close of a ball. A few slender and graceful columns,
their heads adorned with wreaths of trefoil, began to laugh and dance
here and there. Some of the pointed arches dashed at the tall lancet
windows, who, like ladies of the Middle Ages, wore the armorial
bearings of their houses emblazoned on their golden robes. The dance
of the mitred arcades with the slender windows became like a fray at a
tourney.

In another moment every stone in the church vibrated, without leaving