Whether He is preparing for us all one less than, or like it.
Whom the twin laurels adorned, in medicine
And in divine law, the dual crests became him.
Bright-shining man of Eu, by whom the throne of Amiens
Rose into immensity, be thou increased in Heaven."
Amen.
And now at last—this reverence done and thanks paid—we will turn from these tombs, and go out at one of the western doors—and so see gradually rising above us the immensity of the three porches, and of the thoughts engraved in them.
27. What disgrace or change has come upon them, I will not tell you to-day—except only the 'immeasurable' loss of the great old [Pg 107] foundation-steps, open, sweeping broad from side to side for all who came; unwalled, undivided, sunned all along by the westering day, lighted only by the moon and the stars at night; falling steep and many down the hillside—ceasing one by one, at last wide and few towards the level—and worn by pilgrim feet, for six hundred years. So I once saw them, and twice,—such things can now be never seen more.
Nor even of the west front itself, above, is much of the old masonry left: but in the porches nearly all,—except the actual outside facing, with its rose moulding, of which only a few flowers have been spared here and there. [4-15] But the sculpture has been carefully and honourably kept and restored to its place—pedestals or niches restored here and there with clay; or some which you see white and crude, re-carved entirely; nevertheless the impression you may receive from the whole is still what the builder meant; and I will tell you the order of its theology without further notices of its decay.
28. You will find it always well, in looking at any cathedral, to make your quarters of the compass sure, in the beginning; and to remember that, as you enter it, you are looking and advancing eastward; and that if it has three entrance porches, that on your left in entering is the northern, that on your right the southern. I shall endeavour in all my future writing of architecture, to observe the simple law of always calling the door of the north transept the north door; and that on the same side of the west front, the northern door, and so of their opposites. This will save, in the end, much printing and much confusion, for a Gothic cathedral has, almost always, these five great entrances; which may be easily, if at first attentively, recognized under the titles of the Central door (or porch), the Northern door, the Southern door, the North door, and the South door.