THE DOME OF ST. PAUL'S.
The dome of St. Paul's rises above the centre of the church, over the
intersection of the arms of the cross. There are, in fact, two domes--an
interior and an exterior one; and there are three galleries connected
with them which strangers visit. The first of these galleries is an
interior one. It passes round the church on the inside, just at the base
of the interior dome. Our party were going first to visit this gallery.
They accordingly walked back through the whole length of the long
corridor described at the close of the last chapter, and then turned in
towards the centre of the building through a sort of passage way leading
to a door which was pointed out to them by the guide. On entering this
door, they found themselves ushered at once into the whispering gallery.
This they found was a vast circular gallery, extending all round the
interior of the church, directly under the dome.
"Ah," said Mr. George, "here we are in the whispering gallery!"
There was a man standing just inside the door. He accosted the party as
soon as they came in.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "this is the whispering gallery. If you
will pass round to the other side of it, and put your ears against the
wall, I will show you the effect."
So, Mr. George leading the way, and the others following, they all
passed round the gallery towards the other side. The gallery was not
very wide, the space being only sufficient for two or three persons to
walk abreast. There was a high balustrade on the edge of it, and on the
other side a continuous seat against the wall. First Rollo and Jennie,
running forward a little way, sat down on the seat to try it. Then,
going forward again a little in advance of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday,
they stopped to look over the balustrade. Rollo could look over it down
upon the floor of the church far below. Jennie was not tall enough to
look over the balustrade, and so she looked through.
"There!" said Rollo to Jennie, pointing down; "there's the place where
we stood when we looked up to this whispering gallery at the time we
first came in."
The party went on until they had walked half round the gallery and were
exactly opposite the man who was standing at the door where they had
entered. Here Mr. George stopped and sat down upon the seat.
[Illustration: THE WHISPERING GALLERY.]
"Come," said he, "we must all sit down on this seat and put our ears
against the wall."
Mrs. Holiday and the children did as Mr. George had directed, and
listened. The man at the door, then putting his mouth to the wall,
began to speak in a low tone,--almost in a whisper, in fact,--saying
something about the building of the church; and though he was at a great
distance from them,--so far, that if he had been in the open air it
would have been necessary for him to have called out in a very loud
voice to make them hear,--yet every word and syllable of his whisper was
distinctly audible, the sound being brought round in some mysterious
manner along the smooth surface of the wall.
"It is very extraordinary!" said Mrs. Holiday.
"It is, indeed!" said Mr. George.
Rollo himself, however, did not seem to be so much interested in this
acoustic phenomenon as his uncle had been. His attention was attracted
to the spectacle of the workmen, who were employed in repainting the
inner surface of the dome, and whom he could now see at their work on
the staging which he had looked up to from below. One side of the
staging--the side towards the wall--was supported by a cornice, which it
rested upon there. The other side--the side that was towards the centre
of the dome--was suspended by ropes and pulleys, which came down through
the lantern from a vast height above.
There was a ladder, the foot of which rested on this staging, the top
of it being placed against the surface of the dome above. There was a
man upon this ladder, near the top of it, at work on the ceiling, and
two or three assistants on the staging at the foot of it.
Rollo and Jennie gazed some time with great wonder and awe at this
spectacle, picturing to their imaginations the scene which would ensue
if the ropes from the lantern above, by which the staging was suspended,
were to break and let the staging, the ladders, and the men all down to
the pavement below.
Presently Rollo and Jane, on looking up, found that Mr. George and Mrs.
Holiday were going back; so they made haste to follow them. On their way
towards the door they met other parties coming in to see the whispering
gallery. They themselves went out; and, following the directions of the
guide, they began to ascend again, by various intricate and winding
staircases, to higher parts of the building still. After ascending to
the height of four or five stories more, the party came to another
gallery, which was, however, outside of the church instead of within it.
This outer gallery is called the stone gallery; it is so called to
distinguish it from another outer gallery, still higher up, called the
golden gallery. You can see the places of both these galleries by
looking at the engraving, as they are both outside of the building. The
stone gallery is below the dome. You can see the balustrade surrounding
it, just above the head of the statue which stands on the pediment in
the centre of the building. There is a row of columns above this gallery
which supports an entablature above them, that forms the base of the
dome.
As soon as the party came out into the open air they began to realize
how high they had ascended; for they found, on looking down into the
neighboring streets, that the tops of the chimneys of the six-story
houses there were far below them. And yet, as you will see by looking at
the engraving, they had not, thus far, ascended more than half way to
the top of the building.
The party walked round the stone gallery, looking off over the roofs of
the houses in the city on every side. They could see the river, the
bridges, vast ranges of warehouses, and long streets, with tiny
omnibuses and carts creeping slowly along them, and men, like mites,
moving to and fro along the sidewalks. They could see tall chimneys,
too, pouring forth columns of smoke, and steeples and spires of
churches, far below them.
"How high we are!" said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am high _enough_. I do not wish to go any
higher."
In fact, it was somewhat frightful to be so high. It even made Mr.
George dizzy to look down from so vast an elevation.
"Are we above, or below, the dome?" said Mrs. Holiday.
"We are above the inner dome," said Mr. George, "but below the outer
one."
"I thought they were both the same," said Mrs. Holiday. "I thought the
inner dome was the under side of the outer one."
"It ought to be," said Mr. George; "but it is not so in St. Paul's.
There is a great space between, filled with masonry and carpentry."
Here Mr. George led the way up a flight of stone steps that ascended
from the gallery to a door leading into the interior of the church
again. When they had all entered they looked up and saw above and around
them the commencement of a perfect maze of beams, piers, walls,
buttresses, and braces, all blackened by the smoky London atmosphere,
and worn and corroded by time. What was near of this immense
complication was dimly seen by the faint light which made its way
through the narrow openings which were left here and there in nooks and
corners; but the rest was lost in regions of darkness and gloom, into
which the eye strove in vain to penetrate.
This was the space between the inner and the outer dome. The walls which
were seen were part of an immense cone of masonry which was built in the
centre to sustain the whole structure. The lantern above, with the ball
and cross surmounting it, rests on the top of this cone. The outer dome
is formed around the sides of it without. This outer dome is made of
wood; and the immense system of beams and braces which our party saw in
the darkness around them were parts of the framework by which it is
supported.
As our party came into this frightful-looking den of darkness and
terror, they found themselves at the foot of a steep, but pretty broad
and straight, flight of steps, that seemed to lead up into the midst of
the obscure and gloomy maze, though the eye could follow it only for a
short distance.
Mrs. Holiday hung back. She was evidently disinclined to go any farther.
"It is not worth while for us to go any farther is it?" said she,
timidly.
"That is just as you please," said Mr. George. "It is rather frightful,
I admit."
"Ah, yes, mother," said Rollo; "let us go up a little higher."
"No," said Jennie; "I don't want to go up any more. It frightens me."
Mrs. Holiday would have made great efforts to overcome her fears, out of
regard to Rollo's wishes, if he had been there alone; but balanced
between his desires to proceed and Jennie's fears, she seemed to be at a
loss. She stood at the foot of the stairs, looking anxious and
undecided.
Rollo began to go up the staircase.
"Take care, Rollo!" said his mother.
"There is no danger," said Rollo. "There is an excellent railing. I am
only going up a little way to see how far these straight stairs go.
"I can see the top!" said he again, presently. "It is only a little way,
and there is a good broad landing here. Come, Jennie! come up!"
"Would you go?" said Mrs. Holiday, looking to Mr. George.
"Yes," said Mr. George, "if you feel inclined. My rule always is, to
allow the lady to do just as she pleases in going into places where she
is afraid."
"I wish other gentlemen would always adopt that rule," said Mrs.
Holiday.
"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Holiday.
"No," said Mr. George; "I am _sure_ there cannot be any danger. The way
up here is as public as almost any part of London; and people are going
up and coming down continually, and no accidents are ever heard of. In
fact, we know that the authorities would not admit the public to such a
place until they had first guarded it at every point, so as to make it
perfectly safe."
"Then," said Rollo, who had stood all this time listening on the stairs,
"why don't you advise mother to come right up?"
"Because," said Mr. George, "she might suffer a great deal from fear,
though she might not meet with any actual harm, or even fall into any
real danger. I don't wish to have her suffer, even from fear."
"We might go up to the top of this first flight," said Mrs. Holiday. "I
believe I can see the top of it."
Mr. George found, on looking up, that he could distinctly see the
landing at the top of this first flight of steps, his eyes having now
become somewhat accustomed to the dim light of the place. He fully
approved of the plan of going up this flight, and he offered Mrs.
Holiday his arm to assist her in the ascent.
"No," said she; "I would rather that you would help Jennie. I will take
hold of the baluster, if you will lead Jennie."
This arrangement was adopted, and the whole party soon reached the first
landing in safety.
In making this ascent, Mrs. Holiday found her fears diminishing rather
than increasing, which was owing partly to the fact that, as her eyes
became accustomed to the place, she began to discern the objects around
her; so she went timidly on, Mr. George preceding her, and encouraging
her from time to time by cheering words, up a series of staircases,
which twisted and turned by the most devious windings and zigzags,
wherever there appeared to be the most convenient openings for them
among the timbers and the masonry. The party stopped from time to time
to rest. At every such halt Mrs. Holiday seemed half discouraged, and
paused to consider anew the question, whether she should go on any
farther, or return. Mr. George left her entirely at liberty every time
to decide the question just as she pleased; and she always finally
concluded to go on.
Thus they continued to ascend for more than a hundred feet above the
stone gallery; and at length they came out upon another outside gallery,
which is formed around the top of the dome, at the foot of what is
called the lantern. You can see the place of this gallery in the
engraving; though it is so high that the gallery itself, though
surrounded by a massive balustrade, can scarcely be discerned. A person
standing there would be wholly invisible. This is called the golden
gallery. It receives that name from the fact that it is surrounded by a
gilded balustrade.
Of course the view from this upper gallery was far more extended than
the one below; but our party did not enjoy it much, it made them so
giddy to look down; and although the gilded balustrade was extremely
massive, and was built into the stonework in the firmest and most solid
manner, Mrs. Holiday, and even Mr. George, were afraid to go near it;
and the idea of leaning upon it, to look over, seemed perfectly
frightful.
There were some young men in the gallery when our party came up. They
were just preparing to continue their ascent, under the charge of a
guide, up to the cupola. The guide seemed desirous of taking all who
were going in one party. So he turned to Mr. George and said,--
"Do your party wish to go up into the ball?"
Mr. George looked towards Mrs. Holiday.
Mrs. Holiday was very unwilling to prevent Mr. George from ascending as
high as he desired, but she was afraid to go up any farther herself, and
she was unwilling to stay where she was with the children while he
should be gone. It seemed as if the whole of the lofty mass on which she
was standing was toppling, ready to fall, and that the first breath of
wind that should come would blow it down, cupola, dome, and galleries,
all together.
"How much farther is it to the top?" said she, timidly.
"A hundred feet," said the guide.
Mrs. Holiday looked more alarmed than ever.
"A hundred feet!" exclaimed Mr. George. "Why, I thought we were nearly
at the top; and yet there are a hundred feet more! A hundred feet is
equal to a house ten or twelve stories high!
"I don't know that it is worth while for us to go up any higher,"
continued Mr. George, speaking to Mrs. Holiday, "unless you wish it."
"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am sure _I_ don't wish to go any higher."
"Very well," said Mr. George to the guide; "we will not go."
So the guide set out with the young men alone.
"There cannot be any pleasure in it, I am sure," said Mr. George.
"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "there is more pain than pleasure in coming up
_here_!"
"Nor any advantage, that I can see," added Mr. George.
"Except to be able to say," continued Mrs. Holiday, "when we get back to
America, that we have been up into the ball."
"Yes," said Mr. George; "and that, I think, is rather a doubtful
advantage for a lady. The class of ladies that like to boast of having
gone where other ladies seldom go are generally of rather a masculine
character; and I don't think they gain a very desirable kind of
reputation by performing such exploits."
Whether Mr. George was correct or not in this reasoning, it had the
effect of relieving Mrs. Holiday very considerably of any feeling of
disappointment she might have experienced in not having ascended to the
highest accessible point in the building; and so, after pausing a few
minutes in the golden gallery to take hurried glances at the surrounding
views and to recover breath, the party went back to the inside of the
building and commenced the descent. They stopped occasionally to sit
down and rest on the benches which they found placed at convenient
distances, in various nooks and corners, in the course of the descent.
They encountered several other parties coming up; and sometimes they
were passed by parties who were going down, and who went faster than
they. One of these parties consisted of two young men. Mr. George asked
them if they went up into the ball. They said they did. He asked them if
the ascent was very steep and difficult.
"Yes," said one of the young men; "it made my limbs quake, I can assure
you."
"Did you actually go into the ball?" said Mr. George.
"Yes," said the young man.
"How large is the space inside?" asked Rollo.
"Large enough to hold eight men," said he. "There were six in it when we
were there, and there was room for two more."
If you turn to the engraving, and look at the ball under the cross as it
is represented there, you will be surprised to think that it is large
enough to contain eight men; but such is the fact. It is its immense
height from the ground that makes it appear so small.
Rollo and Jennie began to count the steps as they came down, and they
went on very patiently in this work until they got to between one
hundred and sixty and one hundred and seventy; and here, in some way or
other, they lost their reckoning, and so gave up the attempt. Rollo,
however, afterwards found from his guide book that the whole number of
steps from the ground to the ball was six hundred and sixteen.
The party at length reached the floor of the church again in safety.
They then went down to see what was called the crypt, which they found
to be nothing more nor less than a range of subterranean chambers,
precisely like the cellars of a great house, only they were filled with
tombs, and monuments, and old effigies of dead crusaders, some standing
up and some lying down, some new and some old, some whole and others
broken to pieces. The whole place was damp, chilly, and disagreeable;
and the party were very glad to escape from it and to get back to the
light of day.