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.
But to the castle of Durham I have no objection whatever. I should like
to live in it, as I should in all other Tudor houses, great or small,
that I saw, where, as I am constantly saying, a high ideal of comfort
is realized. It is almost as nobly placed as the cathedral, and it is
approached by a very stately courtyard, of like spacious effect with the
cathedral piazza. Inside it there is a kitchen of the sixteenth century,
with a company of neat serving-maids, too comely and young to be,
perhaps, of the same period, that gives the tourist a high sense of the
luxury in which the Bishop of Durham and the Judges of the Assize Courts
live when they are residents in the castle. One sees their apartments,
dim and rich, and darkly furnished, but not gloomily, both where they
sleep and where they eat, and flatteringly envies them in a willingness
for the moment to be a judge or a bishop for the sake of such a fit
setting. There is also a fine crypt, with a fine dining-hall and a black
staircase of ancient oak, and a gallery with classic busts, and other
pictures worthy of wonder, let alone a history from the time of William
the Conqueror, who first fancied a castle where it stands, down to the
present day. The memory of such successive guests as the Empress Matilda
and Henry II. her son, King John, Henry III., Edwards I., II., and III.,
Queen Philippa, Henry VI., and James I., and Charles I., and Edward
VII., abides in the guidebook, and may be summoned from its page to
the chambers of the beautiful old place by any traveller intending
impressions for literary use from a medieval environment in perfect
repair.