uid idea had sprung out of that fountain, and
grown solid in what we see. The pavement is elaborately ornamented; the
ceiling is to be brilliantly gilded and painted, as it was of yore, and
the tracery and sculptures around the walls are to be faithfully renewed
from what remains of the original patterns.

EXETER [Footnote: From "Cathedral Days." By arrangement with, and by
permission of, the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Copyright, 1887.]

BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD

A very obvious part of the charm of Exeter Cathedral lies in the fact that
it has to be sought for. It is so well and dexterously concealed from
view, as one passes along High Street, that one might be some days in town
without so much as suspecting that one of the finest cathedrals in England
was a near neighbor. It was almost by chance, I remember, that as we
turned into a long, quaint alley-way, filled up with little, low shops, we
caught a glimpse of a green plot of grass and some trees in the distance.
Our guiding instinct divined these to be the cathedral close....

To analyze the beauties of Exeter is only to add another note to one's joy
in them, their quality and rarity being of such an order as to warrant
one's cooler admiration. The front is as unique in design as it is
architecturally beautiful. There is that rarest of features in English
cathedrals--an elaborately sculptured screen, thoroughly honest in
construction. In originality of conception this front is perhaps
unrivalled, at least on English soil; there are three receding stories, so
admirably proportioned as to produce a beautiful effect in perspective.
The glory of the great west window is further enhanced by the graduated
arcades which have the appearance of receding behind it. Above the west
window rises a second and smaller triangular window in the gabled roof.

Thus the triangular motif is sustained throughout, from the three low
doorways in the screen up to the far-distant roof. This complete and
harmonious front is nobly enriched by the splendid note of contrast in the
two transeptal Norman towers, whose massive structural elegance and
elaborateness of detail lend an extraordinary breadth and solidity to the
edifice.

The grandeur which distinguishes the exterior is only a fitting
preparation for the solemnity and splendor of the interior. Passing
beneath the thickly massed sculptures of the low portals, the effect of
the vastness of the nave is striking in its immensity.