The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and MajorcaClayton, John William
History
The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and Majorca
Clayton, John William
Majorca (Spain) -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
the departed are near, quickening the soul of the unconscious musician
with a spark of the music-spirit of a higher world? This may be
considered by many as wild talk; but there are still some human beings
who, at least once in their lives, have felt a strain of melody fall
with entrancing power upon their hearts, inspiring diviner thoughts
than they had ever known before, and so subliming the feelings, that
for a time they felt a consciousness of their heavenly origin. He who
has never experienced an enthusiasm like this can have no soul for
music, but must be entirely of the earth, earthy--"only a clod."
Near the high altar the lion-heart of Richard I. of England was buried.
It is now in a very shrunken state, enclosed in a casket, and kept
in the museum. It was left as a legacy to Rouen, for which favour no
doubt the good inhabitants have been very grateful up to the present
hour. His body is in the undisturbed possession of the population of
Fontevrault.
Notwithstanding all the modern improvements which have swept away most
of ancient Rouen, there still remain some wonderful old quarters, where
the crazy wooden houses of centuries back nod towards each other, in
a general state of paralysis, across the dark and narrow streets. How
they manage to stand at all, leaning upon one another for support,
is a mystery; and why they don't sit down bodily upon their occupants
is a subject of painful speculation to those good people. It is most
interesting to wander in the nooks and corners of this solemn old city;
and if the visitor loses his way in the narrow old streets, he may
come unexpectedly upon some venerable remnant of antiquity. In many
parts every turn reveals some splendid relic of bygone days, of an age
of cross-bows, of processions headed by men-at-arms bearing naming
braziers through the dark streets, of gallant companies of splendid
dames, and flaunting cavaliers in slashed doublets, trunk hose, and
inconveniently long swords, all flashing and clanking in the glare as
they pass; of an age of night broils, when the clash of arms was heard
beneath the dark tower, grated window, and overhanging eaves. Within
that ancient palace, ploughed and seamed from gabled roof to the carved
monsters on the balustrades beneath, with one rich mass of florid
Gothic fretwork, armorial bearings, and quaint gargoyles, we might see
the cruel Cardinal of Winchester pacing to and fro in the oak-panelled
hall, fretting that the preparations in the square outside, for the
burning of Jeanne d'Arc, were proceeding so slowly as to make him late
for dinner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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