THE CATHEDRAL.


I do not remember any cathedral with so fine a site as this, rising up
out of the centre of a beautiful green, extensive enough to show its full
proportions, relieved and insulated from all other patchwork and
impertinence of rusty edifices. It is of gray stone, and looks as
perfect as when just finished, and with the perfection, too, that could
not have come in less than six centuries of venerableness, with a view to
which these edifices seem to have been built. A new cathedral would lack
the last touch to its beauty and grandeur. It needs to be mellowed and
ripened, like some pictures; although I suppose this awfulness of
antiquity was supplied, in the minds of the generation that built
cathedrals, by the sanctity which they attributed to them. Salisbury
Cathedral is far more beautiful than that of York, the exterior of which
was really disagreeable to my eye; but this mighty spire and these
multitudinous gray pinnacles and towers ascend towards heaven with a kind
of natural beauty, not as if man had contrived them. They might be
fancied to have grown up, just as the spires of a tuft of grass do, at
the same time that they have a law of propriety and regularity among
themselves. The tall spire is of such admirable proportion that it does
not seem gigantic; and indeed the effect of the whole edifice is of
beauty rather than weight and massiveness. Perhaps the bright, balmy
sunshine in which we saw it contributed to give it a tender glory, and to
soften a little its majesty.

When we went in, we heard the organ, the forenoon service being near
conclusion. If I had never seen the interior of York Cathedral, I should
have been quite satisfied, no doubt, with the spaciousness of this nave
and these side aisles, and the height of their arches, and the girth of