SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.
Those goblin, demon heads are carved low down, where the hand rests, the knees push. They are worn away, polished smooth by the rubbing of the palms and the calves of generations of monks. Safe above, where the uplifted eye strikes, are the heavenly visions,—angels, saints, prophets, the Virgin in glory, fresh as the day old Nufro Sanchez carved them. In the middle of the coro stands the tall facistol holding the yellow vellum music books open at the page where the monkish illuminators painted their most beautiful miniatures.
“There’s Villegas’s picture,” J. whispered, as we passed the coro, “the old choirmaster holding up his baton, scolding the choristers. I know every inch of this church; there’s not a corner he has not painted.”
“And how he has painted it!” sighed Pemberton; “as a man paints the portrait of his mother. How you feel the artists, dead and alive, who have worked here; that’s part of the fascination of the place.”
“Put the camp chairs there,” said Concepcion. She had found us the perfect position, between the coro and the capilla mayor. “Did he tell you that screen is gilded with the first gold that came from the Americas?”
The ship that brought that first gold must have been the size of the Mayflower, from the amount of “first gold” it is supposed to have brought to Spain.
There was no crowd, only a few women dressed like Concepcion, all in black; some poor bodies, a sprinkling of tourists, and one brown Franciscan. The sunlight pouring through the painted window of the Assumption stained the nearest columns blood-red, sapphire, emerald. In the coro, sombre and rich, the crimson and scarlet cloaks of the old canons, sitting slumbrous in the stalls, glowed like jewels in the dusk. Grouped in couples about the facistol were the choir boys, their black-letter scores held between them. The high altar of the capilla mayor was covered by a thick, White Veil, that hung from the groined roof to the floor. Two by two the tonsured acolytes in long purple gowns, with tassels of gold and violet, prepared for the service, dressed the pulpits, laid ready the missals. The three officiating priests appeared, each preceded by a pair of altar boys in scarlet and ivory, carrying silver candlesticks twice as tall as they. The priest at the middle pulpit was a big, powerful man, with a fine resonant voice. His intoning of the gospel was masterly; Concepcion said the finest in Seville, if not in Spain. The old priest with the delicate, spiritual face, like a wax mask with jewel eyes, and the high treble voice, must have been as good at intoning in his day. The little boys who held the candles close for his old eyes to see, leaned towards him with a pleasant, human tenderness. It was easy to see there was love in their service.