VI
It is because they are so, or possibly because of my ignorance,
that I did not know or at all imagine how magnificent the
Cathedral of Durham is, or what a matchless seat it has on the
bluffs of the river, with depths of woods below its front,
tossing in the rich chill of the September wind. As it takes
flight for the heavens, to which its business is to invite the
thought, it seems to carry the earth with it, for if you climb
those noble heights, you find your feet still on the ground, in a
most stately space of open level between the cathedral and its
neighbor castle, which alone could be worthy of its high company.
The castle is Tudor, but the cathedral is beyond all other
English cathedrals, I believe, Norman, though to the naked eye it
looks so Gothic, and probably is. Here I will leave the reader
with any pictures or memories of it which he happens to have, for
I have always held it a sin to try describing architecture, or if
not a sin, a bore. What chiefly remains to me of my impression of
Durham Cathedral is, strangely enough, an objection: I did not
like those decorated pillars, alternating with the clustered
columns of the interior, and I do not suppose I ever shall: the
spiral furrows, the zigzag and lozenge figures chiselled in their
surfaces, weakened them to the eye and seemed to trifle with
their proud bulk.
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