nfant in the other; and two women
before him, one with a mocking smile on her face, the other with her head
turned up in passionate entreaty, grown women they are plainly, but
dwarfed to the stature of young girls before the hidden face of the King.
The judgment of Solomon.--An old man with drawn sword in right hand, with
left hand on a fair youth dwarfed, though no child, to the stature of a
child; the old man's head is turned somewhat towards the presence of an
angel behind him, who points downward to something unseen. Abraham's
sacrifice of Isaac.--Noah too, working diligently that the ark may be
finished before the flood comes.--Adam tilling the ground, and clothed in
the skins of beasts.--There is Jacob's stolen blessing, that was yet in
some sort to be a blessing though it was stolen.--There is old Jacob
whose pilgrimage is just finished now, after all his doings and
sufferings, all those deceits inflicted upon him, that made him remember,
perforce, the lie he said and acted long ago,--old Jacob blessing the
sons of Joseph. And many more which I remember not, know not, mingled
too with other things which I dimly see have to do with the daily
occupations of the men who lived in the dim, far-off thirteenth century.

I remember as I came out by the north door of the west front, how
tremendous the porches seemed to me, which impression of greatness and
solemnity, the photographs, square-cut and brown-coloured do not keep at
all; still however I can recall whenever I please the wonder I felt
before that great triple porch; I remember best in this way the porch
into which I first entered, namely the northernmost, probably because I
saw most of it, coming in and out often by it, yet perhaps the fact that
I have seen no photograph of this doorway somewhat assists the
impression.

Yet I do not remember even of this anything more than the fact that the
tympanum represented the life and death of some early French bishop; it
seemed very interesting. I remember, too, that in the door-jambs were
standing figures of bishops in two long rows, their mitred heads bowed
forward solemnly, and I remember nothing further.

Concerning the southernmost porch of the west front.--The doorway of this
porch also has on the centre pillar of it a statue of the Virgin
standing, holding the Divine Child in her arms. Both the faces of the
Virgin Mother and of her Son, are very beautiful; I like them much better
than those in the south trans