Who should be the architect?
He must be a man of great genius, and his name would become immortal.
There was a wonderful builder in Cologne, and the Archbishop went to him with his purpose, and asked him to attempt the design.
“It must not only surpass anything in the past, but anything that may arise in the future.”
The architect was awed in view of such a stupendous undertaking.
“It will carry my name down the ages,” he thought; “I will sacrifice everything to success.”
He dreamed; he fasted and prayed.
He made sketch after sketch and plan after plan, but they all proved unworthy of a temple that should be one of the grandest monuments of the piety of the time, and one of the glories of future ages.
In his dreams an exquisite image of a temple rose dimly before him. When he awoke, he could vaguely recall it, but could not reproduce it. The ideal haunted him and yet eluded him.
He became disheartened. He wandered in the fields, absorbed in thought. The beautiful apparition of the temple would suddenly fill him with delight; then it would vanish, as if it were a mockery.