HERE are pagodas of diminishing bells. The leopard sleeps in the depth
of his rosy cavern, and when he breathes it is a smell of irresistible
sweetness; in the bestiaries he is the symbol of Christ in His
sepulchre.
This listening conch has collected all the rumours of pantheism; the dew
in this veined cup is the sacrament of nature, while these pale
thuribles worship in the dark with yellow lamps and incense.
Everywhere alchemical profusion—the golden mintage of glades and
ripples, vigils of passion enriched with silver under the fingers of the
moon; everywhere lavishness, colour, music; the smoothness of machinery,
incredible and fantastic ingenuities. God has lost his half-hunter in
the desert.
But we have not come to worship among these Gothic beeches, for all
their pillars and the lace-work of their green windows. We are looking
for other things than churches.