The grandeur which distinguishes the exterior is only a fitting preparation for the solemnity and splendor of the interior.  Passing beneath the thickly massed sculptures of the low portals, the effect of the vastness of the nave is striking in its immensity.  Curiously enough, in this instance, this effect of immensity is not due to an unbroken stretch of nave-aisles or to a lengthy procession of pier-arches, but to the magnificent sweep of the unencumbered vaulting in the roof.  An organ screen intercepts the line of vision at the entrance to the choir.  This, however, is the sole obstruction which the eye encounters.  Above, the great roof, with its unbroken 300 feet of interlacing lines, rises like some mighty forest, its airy loftiness giving to the entire interior a certain open-air atmosphere of breadth and vastness....

What most deeply concerned us was the desire to secure an uninterrupted session of contemplative enjoyment.  We had lost our hearts to the beauty of the cathedral, and cared little or nothing for a clever dissecting of its parts.  We came again and again; and it was the glory of the cathedral as a whole—­its expressive, noble character, its breadth and grandeur, the poetry of its dusky aisles, and the play of the rich shadows about its massive columns—­that charmed and enchained us.  It was one of the few English cathedrals, we said to each other, that possess the Old-World continental charm, the charm of perpetual entertainment, and whose beauty has just the right quality of richness and completeness to evoke an intense and personal sympathy; for in all the greatest triumphs of art there is something supremely human.

Lichfield [Footnote:  From “Our Old Home.”  Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I know not what rank the Cathedral of Lichfield holds among its sister edifices in England, as a piece of magnificent architecture.  Except that of Chester (the grim and simple nave of which stands yet unrivaled in my memory), and one or two small ones in North Wales, hardly worthy of the name of cathedrals, it was the first that I had seen.  To my uninstructed vision, it seemed the object best worth gazing at in the whole world; and now, after beholding a great many more, I remember it with less prodigal admiration only because others are as magnificent as itself.  The traces remaining in my memory represent it as airy rather than massive.  A multitude of beautiful shapes appeared to be comprehended within its single outline; it was a kind of kaleidoscopic mystery, so rich a variety of aspects did it assume from each altered point of view, through the presentation of a different face, and the rearrangement of its peaks and pinnacles and the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot heavenward from all three, but one loftier than its fellows.