housetops, as one sometimes sees, in the far hori-
zon, a gilded and pinnacled mass of cloud lift itself
above the waste of waves, at sea,--the cathedral!
We knew it in a moment.

Half of that night, and all of the next day, this
architectural autocrat was our sole object of interest.

What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so
vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A
very world of solid weight, and yet it seems in the
soft moonlight only a fairy delusion of frostwork
that might vanish with a breath! How sharply its
pinnacled angles and its wilderness of spires were cut
against the sky, and how richly their shadows fell
upon its snowy roof! It was a vision!--a miracle!--
an anthem sung in stone, a poem wrought in marble!

Howsoever you look at the great cathedral, it is
noble, it is beautiful! Wherever you stand in
Milan, or within seven miles of Milan, it is visible--
and when it is visible, no other object can chain
your whole attention. Leave your eyes unfettered
by your will but a single instant and they will surely
turn to seek it. It is the first thing you look for
when you rise in the morning, and the last your
lingering gaze rests upon at night. Surely, it must
be the princeliest creation that ever brain of man
conceived.

At nine o'clock in the morning we went and stood
before this marble colossus. The central one of its
five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds
and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been
so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they
seem like living creatures--and the figures are so

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