When I contemplate my life I could sum it up thus: the past has been horrible; the present seems to me feeble and desolate; the future--is appalling." He paused, and then went on,-- "During my first days here I was happy in the dream suggested by this cathedral.

I believed it would re-act on my life, that it would people the solitude I felt within me, that it would, in a word, be a help to me in this provincial atmosphere.

But I beguiled myself.

In fact, it still weighs on me, it still holds me wrapped in the mild gloom of its crypt; but I can now reason about it, I can scrutinize its details, I try to talk to it of art, and in these inquiries I have lost the unreasoning sense of its environment, the silent fascination of the whole.
"I am less conscious now of its soul than of its body.

I tried to study archaeology, that contemptible anatomy of building, and I have fallen humanly in love with its beauty; the spiritual aspect has vanished, to leave nothing behind but the earthly part.