This latter image best pleased her fancy; a casket, all inlaid in the inside with precious stones of various hue, so that there Should not be a hair’s-breadth of the small interior unadorned with its resplendent gem.  Then, conceive this minute wonder of a mosaic box, increased to the magnitude of a cathedral, without losing the intense lustre of its littleness, but all its petty glory striving to be sublime.  The magic transformation from the minute to the vast has not been so cunningly effected but that the rich adornment still counteracts the impression of space and loftiness.  The spectator is more sensible of its limits than of its extent.

Until after many visits, Hilda continued to mourn for that dim, illimitable interior, which with her eyes shut she had seen from childhood, but which vanished at her first glimpse through the actual door.  Her childish vision seemed preferable to the cathedral which Michael Angelo, and all the great architects, had built; because, of the dream edifice, she had said, “How vast it is!” while of the real St. Peter’s she could only say, “After all, it is not so immense!” Besides, such as the church is, it can nowhere be made visible at one glance.  It stands in its own way.  You see an aisle, or a transept; you see the nave, or the tribune; but, on account of its ponderous piers and other obstructions, it is only by this fragmentary process that you get an idea of the cathedral.

There is no answering such objections.  The great church smiles calmly upon its critics, and, for all response, says, “Look at me!” and if you still murmur for the loss of your shadowy perspective, there comes no reply, save, “Look at me!” in endless repetition, as the one thing to be said.  And, after looking many times, with long intervals between, you discover that the cathedral has gradually extended itself over the whole compass of your idea; it covers all the site of your visionary temple, and has room for its cloudy pinnacles beneath the dome.

One afternoon, as Hilda entered St. Peter’s in sombre mood, its interior beamed upon her with all the effect of a new creation.  It seemed an embodiment of whatever the imagination could conceive, or the heart desire, as a magnificent, comprehensive, majestic symbol of religious faith.  All splendor was included within its verge, and there was space for all.  She gazed with delight even at the multiplicity of ornament.  She was glad at the cherubim that fluttered upon the pilasters, and of the marble doves, hovering unexpectedly, with green olive-branches of precious stones.  She could spare nothing, now, of the manifold magnificence that had been lavished, in a hundred places, richly enough to have made world-famous shrines in any other church, but which here melted away into the vast sunny breadth, and were of no separate account.  Yet each contributed its little all towards the grandeur of the whole.