d the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot
heavenward from all three, but one loftier than its fellows.

Thus it imprest you, at every change, as a newly created structure of the
passing moment, in which yet you lovingly recognized the half-vanished
structure of the instant before, and felt, moreover, a joyful faith in the
indestructible existence of all this cloudlike vicissitude. A Gothic
cathedral is surely the most wonderful work which mortal man has yet
achieved, so vast, so intricate, and so profoundly simple, with such
strange, delightful recesses in its grand figure, so difficult to
comprehend within one idea, and yet all so consonant that it ultimately
draws the beholder and his universe into its harmony. It is the only thing
in the world that is vast enough and rich enough.

Inside of the minster there is a long and lofty nave, transepts of the
same height, and side-aisles and chapels, dim nooks of holiness, where in
Catholic times the lamps were continually burning before the richly
decorated shrines of saints. In the audacity of my ignorance, as I humbly
acknowledge it to have been, I criticized this great interior as too much
broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by
the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not
spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness.

A great deal of white marble decorates the old stonework of the aisles, in
the shape of altars, obelisks, sarcophagi, and busts. Most of these
memorials are commemorative of people locally distinguished, especially
the deans and canons of the cathedral, with their relatives and families;
and I found but two monuments of personages whom I had ever heard of--one
being Gilbert Walmesley, and the other Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a
literary acquaintance of my boyhood. It was really pleasant to meet her
there; for after a friend has lain in the grave far into the second
century, she would be unreasonable to require any melancholy emotions in a
chance interview at her tombstone. It adds a rich charm to sacred
edifices, this time-honored custom of burial in churches, after a few
years, at least, when the mortal remains have turned to dust beneath the
pavement, and the quaint devices and inscriptions still speak to you
above....

A large space in the immediate neighborhood of the cathedral is called the
Close, and comprises beautifully kept lawns and a shadowy w