We were amused, on our way to Strasburg, by the comparative insignificance in our minds of the chain of the Vosges, which, on our outward journey, had impressed us as really very striking in their outline. So much for the effect of a recent acquaintance with grander mountains! Strasburg Cathedral was visited, not for the first time and with a consequent increase of pleasure. Such magnificent architecture as that of its most exquisite nave is truly refreshing after Italian work, and, small as its scale is compared to that of Milan, it in no way lost its effect upon my mind. I was particularly struck by the vast difference between the delicate art shewn in the design of the traceries, in the softly rounded contour and dark recesses of the mouldings, and in the vigour and beauty of the carving of all the capitals, heightened as they are by the flood of coloured light let into the interior by its immense windows filled with some of the noblest stained glass in Europe, compared with that shewn in the rude traceries, heavy carving, and plainness or absence of moulding, which characterize almost all Italian Gothic work. No more strong or decided example need be desired of nearly all the points of contrast between the best work, north and south of the Alps, than this, the first great northern Gothic church seen on the homeward way, presents, when compared with all the work which has nevertheless been studied with so much pleasure and advantage on the southern side of the Alps. It is only fair to say that the first impression produced by the west front of Strasburg was one--felt, indeed, before, but much more strongly now--of the smallness of scale and narrowness of the whole. I have not at any time had any especial love for this front, but, just after seeing the simple unbroken façades of Italian churches, with their grand porches and their simple breadth of effect, there is something so entirely destructive to all repose in a front covered as this is with lines of tracery, panelling, niches, and canopies in every direction, that it leaves, I confess, a painful feeling upon the mind, of the restless nature of its designer’s thoughts. But this is true only of the west front, for, on entering by the door into the nave, all such thoughts are banished on the instant, and you stand awestruck at the beauty and solemnity of the art in which hitherto Northern architects alone have ever approached at all nearly to perfection, and convinced at the same time that, with such a work to refer to, we need never doubt, between the comparative merits of Gothic architecture north and south of the Alps. CHAPTER XIV. “Alas! of thousand bosoms kind, That daily court you and caress, How few the happy secret find Of your calm loveliness!” _Christian Year._