no sign of anxious, unrealized ambition for the future, in-
capable of perfection, because begun and ended incessantly,
and always without continuous design, yet breathing out
an indescribable charm of sympathy almost human in its
loving reverence for the results of all past human effort.
But in the other the soaring lines which guide the eye up-
ward ever to the vault of stone poised miraculously on its
walls of painted glass seem to tell of master minds of long
ago of those

Few whom God whispers in the ear,
For whom earth had attained to Heaven, there was no more far
nor near.

who, greatly daring in their implacable logic, swept ruth-
lessly away all that had gone before, planning to raise a
structure complete and harmonious all through, the absolute
expression of one overmastering ideal of future perfection,
but bound to remain incomplete at the last from the weak-
ness of all human aims and means, for they had aimed at

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard.

Yet therein lies its undying power. While our cathedrals
tell of the strong consciousness of the historical continuity
of the nation which has made of the English a governing
and imperial race, the mediaeval architecture of France is
the expression of that logical and artistic nature which has
made the French through all European history the origin-
ators of the noblest social ideals, the exponents of their
highest expression in art. And here it is that the French
art towers far above the English. It is the expression of
the nation's soul, the other only of the nation's history. So
far as building only makes use of its materials dexterously,
appropriately, beautifully even, with limbs and fingers only,
it falls short of the highest; so far as it lays open the soul
of the man or of the race, it reaches it. The expression of
closely-reasoned design in admirable construction and suit-
ability to its purpose is perfect in such a building as Notre
Dame, or Amiens, or Reims. No more marvellous temples
for the worship of God can be imagined. Yet it is not in
that that their chief glory resides, but in the artistic sense
which made of the French cathedral a perfect combination
of all the arts, more complete than even the Greek temple,

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