In some inscrutable way
we at last arrived at the cathedral, which stands on a higher site than
any other in Lausanne. It has a very venerable exterior, with all the
Gothic grandeur which arched mullioned windows, deep portals, buttresses,
towers, and pinnacles, gray with a thousand years, can give to
architecture. After waiting awhile we obtained entrance by means of an
old woman, who acted the part of sacristan, and was then showing the
church to some other visitors.
The interior disappointed us; not but what it was very beautiful, but I
think the excellent repair that it was in, and the Puritanic neatness
with which it is kept, does much towards effacing the majesty and mystery
that belong to an old church. Every inch of every wall and column, and
all the mouldings and tracery, and every scrap of grotesque carving, had
been washed with a drab mixture. There were likewise seats all up and
down the nave, made of pine wood, and looking very new and neat, just
such seats as I shall see in a hundred meeting-houses (if ever I go into
so many) in America.
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