Look
at the fine engravings, and study it all out as well as you can;
still you can form
No adequate idea of the effect of those endless
arches, of the exquisite carving in stone, of the flowers, strange
figures, and in short every wild, every grotesque thing that you can
or cannot imagine. Well has it been called a great poem in stone, -
such grace, such aspiration, such power, such harmony. O, it was
worth crossing the Atlantic, that first impression.
After the service, I took a guide and went all over this miracle of
beauty and genius, and read the inscriptions and saw the
curiosities.
During my second stay in Liverpool, my friend took me to Chester,
that wonderful old city, just on the borders of Wales. If you can
imagine the front rooms of the second story of a row of houses taken
out, and in their place a floor put over the lower story and a
ceiling under the upper story, and shops in the back rooms, you will
form some idea of Chester. All the streets, nearly, are made in this
way. The carts and horses go in the narrow streets between the
houses, but foot passengers walk in this curious sort of piazzas,
put into the houses instead of being added to them. The most elegant
shops are here in these back rooms, and you walk for whole long
streets under cover, with the dwellings of the inhabitants over your
heads and under your feet.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 20 of 45
Words from 5207 to 5466
of 12178
