[4-23] In the cathedral of Laon there is a pretty compliment paid to the oxen who carried the stones of its tower to the hill-top it stands on. The tradition is that they harnessed themselves,—but tradition does not say how an ox can harness himself even if he had a mind. Probably the first form of the story was only that they went joyfully, "lowing as they went." But at all events their statues are carved on the height of the tower, eight, colossal, looking from its galleries across the plains of France. See drawing in Viollet le Duc, under article "Clocher."
[4-24] For the sake of comparing the pollution, and reversal of its once glorious religion, in the modern French mind, it is worth the reader's while to ask at M. Goyer's (Place St. Denis) for the 'Journal de St. Nicholas' for 1880, and look at the 'Phénix,' as drawn on p. 610. The story is meant to be moral, and the Phœnix there represents Avarice, but the entire destruction of all sacred and poetical tradition in a child's mind by such a picture is an immorality which would neutralize a year's preaching. To make it worth M. Goyer's while to show you the number, buy the one with 'les conclusions de Jeanie' in it, p. 337: the church scene (with dialogue) in the text is lovely.
[4-25] I fear this hand has been broken since I described it; at all events, it is indistinguishably shapeless in the photograph (No. 9 of the series).
[4-26] The statue of the prophet, above, is the grandest of the entire series; and note especially the "diadema" of his own luxuriant hair plaited like a maiden's, indicating the Achillean force of this most terrible of the prophets. (Compare 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter LXV., page 157.) For the rest, this long flowing hair was always one of the insignia of the Frankish kings, and their way of dressing both hair and beard may be seen more nearly and definitely in the angle-sculptures of the long font in the north transept, the most interesting piece of work in the whole cathedral, in an antiquarian sense, and of much artistic value also. (See ante chap. ii. p. 45.)
[4-27] See ante p. 117, note.
[4-28] See ante Chap. I., pp. 5-6, for the history of St. Firmin, and for St. Honoré p. 95, § 8 of this chapter, with the reference there given.
[4-29] See the description of the Madonna of Murano, in second volume of 'Stones of Venice.'
[4-30] The most authentic foundations of the Purgatorial scheme in art-teaching are in the renderings, subsequent to the thirteenth century, of the verse "by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison," forming gradually into the idea of the deliverance of the waiting saints from the power of the grave.
In literature and tradition, the idea is originally, I believe, Platonic; certainly not Homeric. Egyptian possibly—but I have read nothing yet of the recent discoveries in Egypt. Not, however, quite liking to leave the matter in the complete emptiness of my own resources, I have appealed to my general investigator, Mr. Anderson (James R.), who writes as follows:—
"There is no possible question about the doctrine and universal inculcation of it, ages before Dante. Curiously enough, though, the statement of it in the Summa Theologiæ as we have it is a later insertion; but I find by references that St. Thomas teaches it elsewhere. Albertus Magnus developes it at length. If you refer to the 'Golden Legend' under All Souls' Day, you will see how the idea is assumed as a commonplace in a work meant for popular use in the thirteenth century. St. Gregory (the Pope) argues for it (Dial. iv. 38) on two scriptural quotations: (1), the sin that is forgiven neither in hôc sæculo nor in that which is to come, and (2), the fire which shall try every man's work. I think Platonic philosophy and the Greek mysteries must have had a good deal to do with introducing the idea originally; but with them—as to Virgil—it was part of the Eastern vision of a circling stream of life from which only a few drops were at intervals tossed to a definitely permanent Elysium or a definitely permanent Hell. It suits that scheme better than it does the Christian one, which attaches ultimately in all cases infinite importance to the results of life in hôc sæculo.