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Whatever might be the reason, the stately nave, with its high-groined roof, the clustered columns and lofty pillars, the intersecting arches of the side-aisles, the choir, the armorial and knightly tombs that surround what was once the high altar, all produced far less effect than I could have thought beforehand.
The students of Washington College followed next, passing with bowed heads before the mortal remains of him they revered and loved so much and well as their president and friend. The side-aisles and galleries were crowded with ladies, Emblems of mourning met the eye on all sides, and feminine affection had hung funeral garlands of flowers upon all the pillars and walls.
It is the only thing in the world that is vast enough and rich enough. Inside of the minster there is a long and lofty nave, transepts of the same height, and side-aisles and chapels, dim nooks of holiness, where in Catholic times the lamps were continually burning before the richly decorated shrines of saints.
Near the bottom of the village there is a large ruined building, now used as a stable by the inhabitants. The interior is divided into a nave and two side-aisles by rows of square pillars, from which spring pointed arches. The door-way is at the side, and is Gothic, with a dash of Saracenic in the ornamental mouldings above it.
It is thought that the columns of basilicas ought to be as high as the side-aisles are broad; an aisle should be limited to one third of the breadth which the open space in the middle is to have. Let the columns of the upper tier be smaller than those of the lower, as written above.
They are now, as Willis points out, "only of the same height as the clerestory of the Norman Church, to which they formed appendages, and consequently they rose above the side-aisles of that church as much as the clerestory did.
And the enormous depths of the organs' peals rolled and lost themselves by degrees in a hail of little sharp notes, which were swept away under the high arches, like the morning song of the lark. There was a long waving movement, a half-hushed sound amongst the reverential crowd, who filled to overflowing even the side-aisles and the nave.
The groins above are embellished with paintings of foliage, arms, etc., conveying the eye over the choir; thence into the north transept, intercepted in the way by the galleries over the side-aisles, when the general combination of objects is terminated by the north transept window, which, though inferior to the southern window, still has its own peculiar attractions."
The chair into which the young man had slipped was close to a chapel placed between two columns and closed by an iron railing. It was customary for the chapter to lease at a handsome price to seignorial families, and even to rich burghers, the right to be present at the services, themselves and their servants exclusively, in the various lateral chapels of the long side-aisles of the cathedral.
One large body of worshippers might have knelt down in the nave, others in each of the transepts, and smaller ones in the side-aisles, besides an indefinite number of esoteric enthusiasts in the mysterious sanctities beyond the screen. Thus it seemed to typify the exclusiveness of sects rather than the worldwide hospitality of genuine religion. I had imagined a cathedral with a scope more vast.
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