It is as if the builder had
built himself and his age up into it, and as if the edifice had life.
Grecian temples are less interesting to me, being so cold and
crystalline. I think this is the only church I have seen where there are
any statues still left standing in the niches of the exterior walls. We
did not go inside. The steeple of St. Michael's is three hundred and
three feet high, and no doubt the clouds often envelop the tip of the
spire. Trinity, another church with a tall spire, stands near St.
Michael's, but did not attract me so much; though I, perhaps, might have
admired it equally, had I seen it first or alone. We certainly know
nothing of church-building in America, and of all English things that I
have seen, methinks the churches disappoint me least. I feel, too, that
there is something much more wonderful in them than I have yet had time
to know and experience.
In the course of the forenoon, searching about everywhere in quest of
Gothic architecture, we found our way into St. Mary's Hall. The doors
were wide open; it seemed to be public,--there was a notice on the wall
desiring visitors to give nothing to attendants for showing it, and so we
walked in. I observed, in the guide-books, that we should have obtained
an order for admission from some member of the town council; but we had
none, and found no need of it. An old woman, and afterwards an old man,
both of whom seemed to be at home on the premises, told us that we might
enter, and troubled neither themselves nor us any further.
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