Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
The plan of Durham Cathedral is peculiar in having the closed galilee at the western end, instead of the open porch as is usual, while the eastern end, which is wider than the choir, terminates abruptly, having no Lady Chapel, but being in effect cut off, with a gable in the centre and a great rose-window.
Ivy clasped the walls with its nervous tendrils, showing stems amid its foliage like the veins in a lay figure. This mantle, flung by Time to cover the wounds he made, was starred by autumn flowers drooping from the crevices, which also gave shelter to numerous singing birds. The rose-window above the projecting porch was adorned with blue campanula, like the first page of an illuminated missal.
The rose-window still stood out clearly against the deep shadows all about it, but a faint light could now be seen coming in through the little windows, high up near the roof, the clerestory windows, they are called. Betty could see the massive roof, the long aisles crowded with marble monuments, and the pillars.
A singularly brilliant glare of luminance reflected from the plain clear glass that filled the apertures of the rose-window above the altar, struck aslant on the old-world sarcophagus which doubtless contained the remains of one who, all 'miraculous' attributes apart, had nobly lived and bravely died, and as the Bishop moved reverently round it to the front of the altar-rails, his eyes were uplifted and full of spiritual rapture.
Generations often succeeded one another, labouring at gargoyle, rose-window, and shaft, and died, leaving the work to others; the master-builder who drew up the first rough outline passed away, and was succeeded by others, and the details of the work as completed bore sometimes but faint resemblance to the work as he devised it; no man fully understood all that others had done or were doing, but each laboured in his place; and the work as completed had unity; it expressed not the desire and necessity of one mind, but of the human spirit of that age; and not less essential to the existence of the building was the labour of the workman who passed a life of devotion in carving gargoyles or shaping rose-windows, than that of the greatest master who drew general outlines: perhaps it was yet more heroic; for, for the master-builder, who, even if it were but vaguely, had an image of what the work would be when the last stone was laid and the last spire raised, it was easy to labour with devotion and zeal, though well he might know that the placing of that last stone and the raising of that last spire would not be his, and that the building in its full beauty and strength he should never see; but for the journeyman labourer who carried on his duties and month by month toiled at carving his own little gargoyle or shaping the traceries in his own little oriel window, without any complete vision, it was not so easy; nevertheless, it was through the conscientious labours of such alone, through their heaps of chipped and spoiled stones, which may have lain thick about them, that at the last the pile was reared in its strength and beauty.
The rounded portal of entrance is an entablature, enclosed as it were by two supporting columns; and above, in the pointed pediment, is a circular opening curiously foreshadowing that magnificent development of the North the rose-window.
The Church of Notre Dame du Puy, built upon a height, as the word puy implies, is likewise interesting only in respect of details, such as the sculptured archivolts of the portal and the fourteenth-century rose-window.
The high arches shot up in long rows upon either side of them, straight and slim as beautiful trees, until they curved off far up near the clerestory and joined their sister curves to form the lightest, most delicate tracery of stone. In front of them a great rose-window of stained glass, splendid with rich purples and crimsons, shone through a subdued and reverent gloom.
The great northern entrance has been called "Solomon's Porch" since the reign of Richard II., who erected a beautiful wooden porch outside the north door. This was destroyed in the thirteenth century, and the end of the north transept was changed into the classical style under Dean Atterbury, to whom, it is fair to add, we owe the fine glass of the rose-window.
At last she arose, and tottered up the aisle, and the great rose-window glowed like the window of heaven. She imagined her husband and the dead children looking through it. Probably they wondered, as they gazed down, why her head remained so young. Ah! but she was old, so very old. Surely God would take her soon. How should she endure the long years of loneliness and social ignominy?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking