Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/138

 At Cologne began that feast of beautiful things which his artistic temperament fitted him so well to enjoy. Though the churches he visited and the ceremonies he witnessed belonged to a religious system widely different from his own, the largeness and generosity of his mind always led him to insist upon that substratum of true devotion—to use a favourite word of his—which underlies all forms of Christianity.

We spent an hour in the cathedral, which I will not attempt to describe further than by saying it was the most beautiful of all churches I have ever seen, or can imagine. If one could imagine the spirit of devotion, embodied in any material form, it would be in such a building.

In spite of all the wealth of words that has been expended upon German art, he found something new to say on this most fertile subject:—

The amount of art lavished on the whole region of Potsdam is marvellous; some of the tops of the palaces were like forests of statues, and they were all over the gardens, set on pedestals In fact, the two principles of Berlin architecture appear to me to be these. On the house-tops, wherever there is a convenient place, put up the figure of a man; he is best placed standing on one leg. Wherever there is room on the ground, put either a circular group of busts on pedestals, in consultation, all looking inwards—or else the colossal figure of a man killing, about to kill, or having killed (the present tense is preferred) a beast; the more pricks the beast has, the better—in