ration and appear scarcely to have suffered
from the centuries. They are delightfully expressive; the artist had the
advantage of knowing exactly the effect be wished to produce.

The interior of the cathedral has a great simplicity and majesty and,
above all, a tremendous height. The nave is extraordinary in this
respect; it dwarfs everything else I know. I should add, however, that I
am in architecture always of the opinion of the last speaker. Any great
building seems to me while I look at it the ultimate expression. At any
rate, during the hour that I sat gazing along the high vista of Bourges
the interior of the great vessel corresponded to my vision of the
evening before. There is a tranquil largeness, a kind of infinitude,
about such an edifice; it soothes and purifies the spirit, it
illuminates the mind. There are two aisles, on either side, in addition
to the nave--five in all--and, as I have said, there are no transepts;
an omission which lengthens the vista, so that from my place near the
door the central jewelled window in the depths of the perpendicular
choir seemed a mile or two away. The second or outward of each pair of
aisles is too low and the first too high; without this inequality the
nave would appear to take an even more prodigious flight. The double
aisles pass all the way round the choir, the windows of which are
inordinately rich in magnificent old glass. I have seen glass as fine in
other churches, but I think I have never seen so much of it at once.

Beside the cathedral, on the north, is a curious structure of the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, which looks like an enormous flying
buttress, with its support, sustaining the north tower. It makes a
massive arch, high in the air, and produces a romantic effect as people
pass under it to the open gardens of the Archeveche, which extend to a
considerable distance in the rear of the church. The structure
supporting the arch has the girth of a largeish house, and contains
chambers with whose uses I am unacquainted, but to which the deep
pulsations of the cathedral, the vibration of its mighty bells and the
roll of its organ-tones must be transmitted even through the great arm
of stone.

The archiepiscopal palace, not walled in as at Tours, is visible as a
stately habitation of the last century, at the time of my visit under
repair after a fire. From this side and from the gardens of the palace
the nave of the cathedral is visible in all its great