“And now farewell to Italy--perhaps
For ever! Yet, methinks, I could not go,
I could not leave it, were it mine to say
‘Farewell for ever!’”
_Rogers._
Departure from Como--Varese--Lake of Varese--Italian
Boatmen--Intra--Laveno--Lago Maggiore--Magadino--Road to
Hospenthal--The Dazio Grande--Airolo--Hospenthal--Ascent of the
Furca--Valley of the Reuss--Lake of Luzern--Luzern--The Unter
Hauenstein--Strasburg.
There was great delay in leaving Como; the passport officer was asleep,
and no one dared to awaken him for our convenience; at last we
determined to start, and went off to the passport office, and, after
waiting nearly half an hour, the dilatory clerk arrived, and our
passport having been stamped with the “Buon per partire,” so uncivilly
glad to get rid of you as it seems to be, I mounted the carriage, and we
were soon on our way.
All Como was astir, and bedecking the houses and churches, and building
triumphal arches across the roads, for some religious fête whose nature
we did not discover; but we soon left its streets and hills behind, and
began to look out anxiously for our first view of Monte Rosa and its
attendant Alps; but, alas! the weather, instead of clearing, rapidly
became more and more cloudy, and ere long we felt that we must give up
all hope of getting even the most distant glimpse of the monarch of
this portion of the Alpine chain.
Without this view, from which we had promised ourselves so much
pleasure, the road is tame and uninteresting all the way to Varese,
where we changed our horses and carriage. It is an uninteresting town,
with a good many villas and gardens, belonging, I believe, to
inhabitants of Milan, who come out here for the mountain air. None of
their houses are free from that general look of dreariness and lack of
care which seem to afflict most Italian villas. Passing through Varese,
we soon saw on our right a very famous pilgrimage church crowning the
summit of a considerable hill, and approached by a succession of
chapels, somewhat as in the still more famous pilgrimage church of
Varallo, and so popular that round it there seems to have grown up a
small town for the accommodation of the pilgrims.
Farther on we passed the lake of Varese, and from one point in the road
had a view of no less than about five different lakes, one of which was
Lago Maggiore. The Lago di Varese is a tame, uninteresting sheet of
water, surrounded by low flat woody country, except at one point on the
north, but even there the hills do not rise immediately from the lake.
The only approach to old buildings that we saw were one or two brick
campanili of early date, and the remains of a castle, near Varese,
finished at the top with the favourite forked battlement.
We had much ado to make our driver understand our desire to reach Lago
Maggiore without delay, and, to say the truth, there was something too
much like cruelty in the attempt to compel our poor steeds to any such
feat of speed and strength as the performance of some six miles an hour
really appeared to be. As we neared the lake the scenery improved; and
woody hills, with here and there a dashing streamlet finding its way
down the hill-side, and a glimpse now and then of the blue water of the
lake, made the way pleasant. At last we reached the outskirts of the
village of Laveno, and were immediately chased by all the male
population of the place, who explained their eager pursuit when at last
we stopped on the beach, by vying with one another for the privilege of
conveying us across the lake to Intra, where we had to join the steamer.
I asked their charge, and they rather astonished me by demanding twelve
francs and a buono-mano; of course I blandly offered them five francs,
much to their disgust, and with shrugs of their shoulders and grand
looks of contempt they turned away. However, I was determined not to
submit to so palpable an imposition, so, when I was having my passport
_visé_, I asked the courteous passport-officer what the fair charge
might be? “Four and a half lire,” was the answer. “But how am I to
compel the rascals to take me?”--“Oh! bring them up to me,” he replied;
so down I went to where all the boatmen were discussing together the
atrocity of my offer, and, taking two of them by the arm, I quietly
walked them up to the friendly officer; the rest followed, and then
commenced one of the most amusing scenes I ever witnessed. The
passport-officer told them to take me for the four and a half lire, upon
which, they all, standing with their right arms extended towards him,
answered with a furious volley of Italian ejaculations, quite
unintelligible to me, but sufficiently absurd when contrasted with the
quiescent state of their antagonist. Their eloquence was, however, all
in vain; for, after a short attempt to reason them into submission, my
friend sent them off, and threatened to send a soldier with us if they
did not start at once. Before I could reach the beach again the luggage
was all in the boat, and in another minute we were afloat, propelled by
three sturdy fellows, who, after having tried in vain to make me pay
fourteen lire and a buono-mano, were really not apparently much annoyed
when I paid them the legal fare, being about one-fourth less than at a
guess I had first of all offered! They were evidently true philosophers.
I fear that my experience of travelling in Italy obliged me to look upon
the proceedings of these men as by no means unusual or peculiar to
boatmen; wherever you go it is the same, and, unless you wish to pay
much more than the rest of the world ever thinks of paying, you must
make a point of disputing hotel accounts, shop charges, and voiturier’s
charges; the result always is, that you pay about twenty per cent less
than you otherwise would, and are evidently looked up to with infinitely
more respect.
About half an hour sufficed to take us to Intra, the Sardinian port
opposite to Laveno, just a glimpse being obtained of the famous Isola
Bella as we crossed. A Sardinian soldier welcomed us to his liberal
Majesty’s dominions, and, as we told him that we were going on by the
steamer, allowed us to go into the town without shewing our passports.
There was, however, nothing to see, except the pretty view of the
opposite hills--they are scarcely mountains--and of the long sheet of
water stretching up and down for many a mile, and commanded almost more
completely hence than from any other place in its whole extent.
We dined at a very miserable inn, with a pretty lookout, and, as it
happened to be a _jour maigre_, could get nothing fit to eat; the
landlord took, however, a convenient view of the matter, and, assuring
us that he never made any difference on this account, charged us as
though we had eaten all the delicacies of the season. Here, again, as I
had time on my hands, I amused myself with lowering my host’s demands,
and finally paid him a fair valuation for a very _maigre_ dinner.
This business was no sooner satisfactorily finished, a sketch of the
opposite coast having been secured during the argument, than the steamer
arrived, and in a few minutes we were ploughing our way along the fair
expanse of water, leaving the not very honest people of Laveno and Intra
behind us and forgotten, all our attention being devoted to the
gradually developing beauties of the upper end of the lake.
We were amused at Laveno by the warlike demonstrations of the Austrians,
who had there a very smart little war-steamer for the protection of
their interests on the lake, besides a small fort. They had, in fact,
less territory on the lake than either Sardinia or Switzerland; luckily,
however, for the peace of the water, these two last states seemed not to
think it necessary to keep up a rival force, and so the little
war-steamer at Laveno remained, untouched and uncared for, and her
officers passed their lives in smoking cigars and longing for some
change of place and duty, which was provided for them at last by the
abrupt conclusion of Austrian rule in these parts a few years after the
time of this visit.
Our steamer kept very much to the Sardinian shore of the lake, and, as
there are two or three great bends in its course, a view of one small
portion only of the lake is obtained, until, upon reaching a promontory,
and rounding it, as it were a new lake and new scenery are disclosed;
and happily, as the water is ascended towards Magadino, each turn brings
more beautiful scenery than the last, until, as the head of the lake is
neared, the view is very grand--not equal, certainly, to the head of
Lake Como--but still exceedingly beautiful. The sun was just setting as
we reached Locarno, and then our steamer, skirting along the sedgy
shores of the lake--where the Ticino, at its entry, brings down a
continually increasing deposit of mountain refuse--brought us in a few
minutes to Magadino.
Our principal companions on the steamer were a large party of English,
whose travelling-carriage and horses blocked up half the boat, and a
very pleasant old Italian woman, whose elaborately neat hair and
magnificent array of pins, each filigreed at the end, and all radiating
like arrows from a central knot of hair, through which two larger and
more magnificent pins were passed horizontally, forced upon our
notice--but not more strongly than it had been forced before--this
wonderful smartness and elaborate treatment and get-up of the hair, so
common among the middle and lower classes in the North of Italy, and so
unlike the customs of a similar class in England: I am bound to say,
though, that the result of the elaborate straining and dressing of the
hair seems generally to be, that, by the time women are fifty, they have
no hair at all, or, at best, some two or three stray locks, which are
then brought carefully together, and tied up, with a bold disregard of
effect, in a knot at the top of the head.
When we landed at Magadino we found a diligence waiting, and, securing
the _coupé_, jumped in, and were soon trotting off rapidly on the road
to Bellinzona; in little more than an hour we passed through its gateway
without having our passports demanded (how pleasant a change after
Italy!), and were soon comfortably ensconced at the very respectable
Albergo dell’ Angelo.
We started from Bellinzona very early the next morning, determined, if
possible, to surmount the worst part of the road and to sleep at
Hospenthal, on the northern side of the pass. The view of Bellinzona on
leaving it is very striking; three old castles perched on crags above
give it an air of picturesque antiquity, and these, with the mountains
rising grandly on either side of the Ticino, and sloping down in the
distance to the bosom of Lago Maggiore, make a most beautiful picture.
The situation is not, however, to be compared to that of Chiavenna,
whose wall of mountains, clothed with Italian luxuriance of foliage, is
pierced here and there with a chasm only, for the passage of some
headlong river dashing down into the broad valley below the town; here
the valley continues to be of considerable width for some miles above
the town, whilst there one scarcely sees in what way any road is to
escape across the mountains.
The first portion of the road is not very interesting. The pass of the
Bernardino soon turns off to the right up a valley which allows a
partial view, and from this point the S. Gothard road is sole possessor
of the valley. Our first change of horses was at Bodio; and from thence
the road gradually became much more beautiful. Many churches are seen
scattered here and there on the summits of the inaccessible-looking
mountains on either side of the valley, all of them whitewashed and
generally distinguished by their tall campanili, and sometimes by the
small cluster of houses and the patches of cultivated ground around
them, betokening man’s labour as well as man’s religious love, on the
summit of these forbidding-looking steeps. And whilst the distant
prospect was so fair, the scenery close to the road was embellished by
vineyards and magnificent chestnuts, growing in some places among great
rocks shivered from the mountain-side above, and, in others, in groves
on either side of some beautiful stream descending in a silver fall over
the grey precipices which overhang the road.
The villages through which we passed were pretty and picturesque, and
the villagers all very busy in the fields bringing in their hay, and
gathering their grapes, which are always trained here over rocks and
roofs in the most picturesquely irregular way; and altogether the
valley, rife with so many signs of industry and activity, bore
thoroughly the appearance rather of a Swiss than of an Italian district.
The upper slopes of the mountains, on either side, were clustered with
fir-trees, and the deep blue water of the Ticino, here gently murmuring,
there hastily dashing over some rocky impediment, made grateful music in
our ears and imparted additional beauty to the way.
At Biasca and Giornico there are ancient churches, the exteriors of
which are, however, of no interest; though the interior of the latter,
with its crypt and curious paintings, well deserves a passing visit; but
besides these all seemed new, and the houses as well as the people and
the scenery soon began to remind us of Switzerland. There were those
particularly large well-to-do looking inns in every village, with white
walls and windows resplendent with green wooden shutter-blinds which are
so common throughout this country; and here and there were to be seen
houses with a display of well-carved or craftily-framed woodwork, which
gave proof of our rapid approach to the land _par excellence_ of
carpentry.
But it was not till Faido had been passed, and the increasing barrenness
of the hills, the entire absence of vineyards, and the only occasional
appearance of some grand old chestnut-tree, weatherbeaten and rugged
from conflict with many a storm, or, may be, some frightful inundation
such as the Ticino loves at times to indulge in, shewed how rapidly we
were rising into mountain regions, that the scenery became really
striking. Then the road seems suddenly to arrive at the end of the
valley, but presently as we advance, a narrow gorge in the mountain is
perceived, and we enter this, the most magnificent portion of the Val
Levantina, called Dazio Grande. The road is admirably engineered,
carried through two or three short tunnels, and in excavations in the
rocks above the torrent; the dark blue water leaps from rock to rock,
and here and there dashes down in a fine waterfall; and the scenery is
altogether so striking that, on the whole, I am much inclined to give
the preference to this portion of the valley--that is to say, from the
commencement of Dazio Grande to within a short distance of Airolo--over
any portion of similar length in the whole course of the Splügen. The
first narrow defile passed, the valley opens out again, and, with
occasional glimpses all the way of the old road winding below near the
margin of the stream, and destroyed some years since in a storm, ere
very long we reach another defile as beautiful as the last, but much
shorter; for here, after crossing the stream and mounting a short
distance, a projecting rock is pierced, the river finds its outlet
beneath through a chasm not twenty feet in width, and then, the valley
opening out again, Airolo is seen just before us, and beyond the little
cluster of houses which marks the village rise the mountains, so grandly
and abruptly closing in the head of the Val Bedretto, up which our
course now lies, whilst every here and there on their rugged sides or
summits some snowy peak or glacier edge tells not uncertainly of their
grand elevation.
We arrived at Airolo by about two o’clock, and here we had a rest of an
hour and a half for dinner, followed by a ransacking of a collection of
Swiss woodwork, ending--as such an operation always does--much to the
advantage of its proprietor.
With fresh horses we were soon on the road again, and now the weather,
which had been unpromising and occasionally wet, seemed inclined to
improve, and we commenced the real ascent of the mountain under rather
more promising circumstances than we had at first anticipated. The road
soon leaves the river, and, turning to the right, winds and twists about
in the serpentine fashion known only to Alpine roads, and quite
incomprehensible until one has seen them, keeping the church and village
of Airolo in view, first on the right, then on the left, for hours. Here
and there a straight bit of road gives hopes that the zig-zagging is
over, but the thought is no sooner expressed than it is contradicted by
another ascent worse than before, and one begins to envy the electric
telegraph carried here in straight lines from point to point, where one
would have thought it impossible to gain footing for its supports, and
giving fair idea of the directness and speed of the communications of
which it is the channel. The head of the Val Tremola, as the valley
along which the road finds its way is called, is nearly reached, and the
last glimpse of the mountains, at the head of Val Bedretto, is caught,
when a stream is crossed and the last flight of zig-zags is commenced;
these are both numerous and intricate, and as one looks down upon them
from above, their interlacings produce a most singular effect. At last,
however, these are surmounted, greatcoats and plaids are in requisition,
and we all begin to feel uncomfortably cold. The cold grey colour of the
wild mountains of granite, great blocks from whose sides strew the
ground thickly on either side, seems to harmonize well with the scene,
and when presently we pass the Capuchin hospice our driver tells us that
we are at the summit. Two or three dark deep-looking pools or tarns
stand close to the hospice, and reminded me in their gloomy and cold
aspect of the tarn which gives so much character to the hospice of the
Grimsel. The same kind of scenery accompanied us on the now rapid
descent; the sun went down, and the stars were soon out shining
brilliantly upon the mountain road, when at last a sudden turn brought
us in sight of lights, and then, descending a few zig-zags, we saw below
us the roofs of the houses of Hospenthal, and, in less time than it
takes to describe, were standing on the steps of one of the best inns
even in Switzerland, the Goldner Löwe, and superintending the unpacking
of our goods.
In such an inn as this everything proves forcibly that one is in
Switzerland; the rooms are all very clean and very small, and there is
a certain homely air about everybody and everything which is the
especial charm of the better class of Swiss country inns, and in which
they excel, perhaps, all but the very best English inns of the same
kind.[79]
We spent an amusing evening, having for companions a Frenchman with his
wife and two daughters, all very lively and exceedingly loquacious: the
walls of the modest _salle à manger_ rang with hearty laughter until
after the time at which early travellers generally go to bed, and so we
paved the way doubtless for a hearty night’s rest.
The first thing to be done in the morning, after the discussion of the
excellent trout and honey put before us, was to take a stroll up to the
old castle which lends so much picturesque character to the village. The
weather was glorious; the perfectly blue sky overhead, the bright green
of the valley, the luxuriance of the lower slopes of the mountains, and
the view up the pass of the Furca closed in with a white line of snow,
combined together to make us all regret our determination to push on
rapidly for Luzern; and no sooner was the regret felt than--like idle
school-children enjoying themselves while they may--we made up our minds
to ascend the Furca, sleep on the summit of the pass, and return early
the next morning. No sooner said than done; our horses were taken out of
the carriage, and in half an hour, with a guide and horses for the
ladies, we were on our way for a mountain excursion, full of that
elastic feeling which the treading of a Swiss mountain-path always
gives, and bent upon enjoying ourselves to the full.
The contrast with the flat dusty roads and the sultry weather to which
you are so often forced to submit in Italy made the walk especially
pleasant; and though, compared to many other mountain excursions, it
was of slight interest, under the circumstances it presented more than
common attraction to us. The path was one of those pleasant ways so
common in Switzerland--a paved narrow road between banks of fields or
low walls, gradually rising and falling, now crossing the dry bed of
some glacier torrent, and now bridging the stream which descends the
valley to feed the Reuss. The fields were rich in colour, and bright
with various and lovely flowers, and the lower slopes of the mountain
were tinted a rich purple with the bloom of herbs, cropped gratefully
here and there by small and melancholy looking sheep.
The small village of Realp is soon reached, and then the ascent begins;
this is rather stiff, and it has taken us, when we reach the summit,
just four hours and a half of hard walking from Hospenthal. We found
dinner going on at the little hostelry at the top, and, after partaking
of it, started again to ascend the Furca-Horn, a mountain rising above
the summit of the pass, and, as we had been told, quite worth the
trouble of the ascent. There was no kind of path, and in places the
mountain-side was so steep that I began to think it was no place for
ladies to scramble up; however, they thought otherwise, and after divers
tumbles in the snow, and surmounting rather formidable-looking
obstacles, we reached the summit at last, and, sitting down on the edge
of a great rock, spent a long time in enjoying the glorious view.
Just under us was the vast glacier of the Rhone, and then beyond it we
looked down the long valley of the same river until its shape was
obscured by mist, and traced the path by which we had walked in a
previous journey up the steep Meyenwand to the Grimsel. Immediately in
front of us were the vast peaked mass of the Schreckhorn, the whole
course of the glaciers of the Aar, and the peaks of the
Finster-Aarhorn, the Jungfrau, and the Mönch; above our heads rose the
Galenstock, and opposite us the Mutthorn and Monte Fiudo; whilst the
summit of Monte Rosa, discerned with difficulty among a marvellous array
of distant peaks, completed one of the finest views of snow-covered
mountains which it has ever been my good fortune to behold.
Long time did we keep our elevated seats, scanning again and again the
glorious panorama, and at last, most unwillingly, commenced the descent;
this was more difficult, though much more speedy, than the ascent, as
the side of the mountain was both steep and slippery. We reached the
summit of the pass, itself about eight thousand three hundred feet above
the sea, in little more than an hour, the ascent to the Horn having
occupied about two hours and a half; and here we found our French
friends of the previous evening, who had in vain endeavoured to follow
us in our ascent, but had been one and all obliged to give up the
attempt.
Late at night we all went out again to look at the most glorious
moonlight effect it is possible to imagine; the peaks of the mountains
and the vast fields of snow or glacier lighted up by the bright light of
the moon had a charm about them peculiarly fascinating.
Very early the next morning we started again on our way back to
Hospenthal, and got down to the inn in good time, had breakfast, and
then, mounting our carriage, we were soon off again down the valley of
the Reuss. The Devil’s Bridge was ere long reached, and the glorious
scenery with which it is surrounded amply redeemed the expectations I
had always formed of its extreme beauty; indeed for grandeur, combined
with luxuriant cultivation of the lower slopes of the mountains, and for
the wild beauty of the course of the river itself, nothing even in
Switzerland surpasses the narrow valley through which the turbulent
Reuss finds its way from Andermatt to Amsteg.
Here the valley widens considerably, and orchards full of fruit-trees,
covered with bright-looking apples, spread half over the valley, on each
side of which the mountains are very grand in their outline. Before long
Altdorf is reached, and all the scenes so dear to Swiss freemen are
rapidly passed, until at last our carriage sets us down on the very edge
of the lovely Lake of Luzern, where the half-hour which we have to wait
for the departure of the steamer is spent in attempting a sketch of the
rocks which descend so precipitously into the deep recesses of the lake.
Much harm is done by overpraising beautiful scenery, and even the Lake
of the Four Cantons suffers from this; for so much has been said and
written about its unmatched loveliness and grandeur, that the result is
perhaps a slight disappointment with the reality. One great beauty, no
doubt, is the succession of entirely distinct views which different
portions of the lake afford, though at the same time the irregular
outline of the water very much diminishes its apparent scale; I doubt,
too, whether there is any one view so grand as that at the head of Lake
Como, though otherwise I know no lake which can be preferred to it.
On the voyage down the lake, Tell’s Chapel and the famous Grütli were of
course seen; a distant view was caught of the old cradle of Switzerland,
the little town of Schwytz, with the grand peaks of the Mythenberg
rising proudly behind it; the Righi, and the black-looking Pilatus, were
each in turn passed; and as evening drew on, the flat shores of the
lower part of the lake were neared, and presently the spires and turrets
of Luzern came in sight. In a few minutes the bustle of landing being
over, the immense Schweizer Hof received us within its capacious walls,
just in time for one of those accommodating late tables-d’hôte so
acceptable after a long day’s travel.
Three or four hours spent the next morning in strolling about served
only to convince us that there was not very much of architectural
interest in the city itself. A line of old wall, broken at short
intervals by picturesque and irregular towers, and a very long covered
bridge across the lake just where the Reuss runs out of it, are the only
noticeable features. The bridge is ornamented with an immense number of
oil-paintings--two to each principal rafter--illustrative of the history
of the place and country, not valuable as works of art, but curious in
themselves, and giving much additional interest to the structure.
The principal church has two western towers and spires; the latter are
of metal and managed in the way so common in this part of the world,
though never, so far as I know, attempted in England,[80] with the
angles of the spire over the centre of the cardinal sides of the tower.
The whole of the rest of the church is modernized; and there is a
singular modern cloister, which nearly surrounds the churchyard, and
contains an immense array of graves and grave-crosses.
We left Luzern at eleven for Basel, in the diligence, and had a very
pleasant ride over often-travelled ground, of which, therefore, the less
said perhaps the better. The rich luxuriance of the crops, the careful
farming, the vast barns, and the great loads of produce which are
constantly met upon the road, remind the traveller more of England than
any other portion of the Continent ever does. The Lake of Sempach was
soon passed on our right, and at last a pause was made in the good
old-fashioned way, for a very comfortable dinner at the little old town
of Zofingen. At Aarberg the dashing Aar was crossed, and soon the
ascent of the Unter Hauenstein range was commenced; and here we enjoyed
the most extensive of all the day’s views of the Alps--the last and
grandest. Gradually as the summit is reached peak after peak is seen
rising up above the mist which shrouds the lower slopes of the
mountains, their white outlines tenderly relieved against the blue sky:
we recognized one after the other almost the entire range of the
grandest mountains in Europe, seen before nearer but not in fairer
guise, but wherever seen leaving the same lasting impression upon the
mind. Suddenly we overpassed the summit, and began rapidly to descend
the northern slope of the hills; but the last link that bound us to the
land in which we had been voyaging, as we hope, not for the last time,
is never to be remembered but with affectionate regard, touched, as
every one must be, in viewing such a panorama, with the extreme glory of
the scene.
We had now done with mountains and with mountain scenery, though the
road was still interesting and very pretty, and at last late in the
evening we reached Basel. The moon was shining brightly on the Rhine as
we went to our beds for the last time, in this journey at least, in
Switzerland.
We were amused, on our way to Strasburg, by the comparative
insignificance in our minds of the chain of the Vosges, which, on our
outward journey, had impressed us as really very striking in their
outline. So much for the effect of a recent acquaintance with grander
mountains!
Strasburg Cathedral was visited, not for the first time and with a
consequent increase of pleasure. Such magnificent architecture as that
of its most exquisite nave is truly refreshing after Italian work, and,
small as its scale is compared to that of Milan, it in no way lost its
effect upon my mind. I was particularly struck by the vast difference
between the delicate art shewn in the design of the traceries, in the
softly rounded contour and dark recesses of the mouldings, and in the
vigour and beauty of the carving of all the capitals, heightened as they
are by the flood of coloured light let into the interior by its immense
windows filled with some of the noblest stained glass in Europe,
compared with that shewn in the rude traceries, heavy carving, and
plainness or absence of moulding, which characterize almost all Italian
Gothic work. No more strong or decided example need be desired of nearly
all the points of contrast between the best work, north and south of the
Alps, than this, the first great northern Gothic church seen on the
homeward way, presents, when compared with all the work which has
nevertheless been studied with so much pleasure and advantage on the
southern side of the Alps.
It is only fair to say that the first impression produced by the west
front of Strasburg was one--felt, indeed, before, but much more strongly
now--of the smallness of scale and narrowness of the whole. I have not
at any time had any especial love for this front, but, just after seeing
the simple unbroken façades of Italian churches, with their grand
porches and their simple breadth of effect, there is something so
entirely destructive to all repose in a front covered as this is with
lines of tracery, panelling, niches, and canopies in every direction,
that it leaves, I confess, a painful feeling upon the mind, of the
restless nature of its designer’s thoughts. But this is true only of the
west front, for, on entering by the door into the nave, all such
thoughts are banished on the instant, and you stand awestruck at the
beauty and solemnity of the art in which hitherto Northern architects
alone have ever approached at all nearly to perfection, and convinced at
the same time that, with such a work to refer to, we need never doubt,
between the comparative merits of Gothic architecture north and south of
the Alps.