" By this I dare say
I meant it had not that artistic unity of which I brought the
impression from the inside. They were doing, as they were always
doing, every where, with English cathedrals, something to one of
the towers; but this only enhanced its scattering nobleness, for
it left that greatly bescaffolded tower largely to the
imagination, in which it soared sublimer, if anything, than its
compeer. Most of the streets leading to and from the rather
insufficient, irregular square where the Minster stands are lanes
of little houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth, centuries, which
collectively curved in their line, and not only overhung at their
second stories, but bulged outward involuntarily from the
weakness of age. They were all quite habitable, and some much
later dwellings immediately surrounding the church were the
favorite sojourn, apparently, of such strangers as could have
rooms at the hotels only until the Monday of Doncaster Week.
III
During those limited days of the week before Doncaster, I was
constantly coming back to the Minster, which is not the germ of
political York, or hardly religious York; the brave city was a
Romano-British capital and a Romano-British episcopal see
centuries before the first wooden temple was built on the site of
the present edifice in 627.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65