resemble English structures, a strangeness that assails one unless
familiarity has taken the edge off one's perceptions. Though not the case
with all the fine churches and cathedrals of Normandy, yet with an
unpleasantly large proportion--unfortunately including the magnificent
Church of St Ouen at Rouen--there is beyond the gaudy tinsel that crowds
the altars, an untidiness that detracts from the sense of reverence that
stately Norman or Gothic does not fail to inspire. In the north transept of
St Ouen, some of the walls and pillars have at various times been made to
bear large printed notices which have been pasted down, and when out of
date they have been only roughly torn off, leaving fragments that soon
become discoloured and seriously mar the dignified antiquity of the
stone-work. But beyond this, one finds that the great black stands for
candles that burn beside the altars are generally streaked with the wax
that has guttered from a dozen flames, and that even the floor is covered
with lumps of wax--the countless stains of only partially scraped-up
gutterings of past offerings. There is also that peculiarly unpleasant
smell so often given out by the burning wax that greets one on entering the
cool twilight of the building. The worn and tattered appearance of the
rush-seated chairs in the churches is easily explained when one sees the
almost constant use to which they are put. In the morning, or even as late
as six in the evening, one finds classes of boys or girls being catechised
and instructed by priests and nuns. The visitor on pushing open the swing
door of an entrance will frequently be met by a monotonous voice that
echoes through the apparently empty church. As he slowly takes his way
along an aisle, the voice will cease, and suddenly break out in a simple
but loudly sung Gregorian air, soon joined by a score or more of childish
voices; then, as the stranger comes abreast of a side chapel, he causes a
grave distraction among the rows of round, closely cropped heads. The
rather nasal voice from the sallow figure in the cassock rises higher, and
as the echoing footsteps of the person who does nothing but stare about him