which would swallow up anything that might look gewgawy in its
ornamentation, were we to consider it window by window, or pillar by
pillar. It is an advantage of these vast edifices, rising over us and
spreading about us in such a firmamental way, that we cannot spoil them
by any pettiness of our own, but that they receive (or absorb) our
pettiness into their own immensity. Every little fantasy finds its place
and propriety in them, like a flower on the earth's broad bosom.

When we emerged from the cathedral, we found it beginning to rain or
snow, or both; and, as we had dismissed our fiacre at the door, and could
find no other, we were at a loss what to do. We stood a few moments on
the steps of the Hotel Dieu, looking up at the front of Notre Dame, with
its twin towers, and its three deep-pointed arches, piercing through a
great thickness of stone, and throwing a cavern-like gloom around these
entrances. The front is very rich. Though so huge, and all of gray
stone, it is carved and fretted with statues and innumerable devices, as
cunningly as any ivory casket in which relics are kept; but its size did
not so much impress me. . . . .


Hotel de Louvre, January 12th.--This has been a bright day as regards
weather; but I have done little or nothing worth recording. After
breakfast, I set out in quest of the consul, and found him up a court, at
51 Rue Caumartin, in an office rather smaller, I think, than mine at
Liverpool; but, to say the truth, a little better furnished. I was
received in the outer apartment by an elderly, brisk-looking man, in
whose air, respectful and subservient, and yet with a kind of authority
in it, I recognized the vice-consul. He introduced me to Mr. ------, who
sat writing in an inner room; a very gentlemanly, courteous, cool man of
the world, whom I should take to be an excellent person for consul at