Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/173

Rh Justice, the Conciergerie, the holy chapel of Saint Louis. They came out before the church, which looks down on a square where the past, once so thick in the very heart of Paris, has been made rather a blank, pervaded, however, by the everlasting freshness of the great cathedral-face. It greeted Nick Dormer and Gabriel Nash with a kindness which the centuries had done nothing to dim. The lamplight of the great city washed its foundations, but the towers and buttresses, the arches, the galleries, the statues, the vast rose-window, the large, full composition, seemed to grow clearer as they climbed higher, as if they had a conscious benevolent answer for the upward gaze of men.

"How it straightens things out and blows away one's vapours—anything that's done!" said Nick; while his companion exclaimed, blandly and affectionately:

"The dear old thing!"

"The great point is to do something, instead of standing muddling and questioning; and, by Jove, it makes me want to!"

"Want to build a cathedral?" Nash inquired.

"Yes, just that."

"It's you who puzzle me, then, my dear fellow. You can't build them out of words."

"What is it the great poets do?" asked Nick.

"Their words are ideas—their words are images, enchanting collocations and unforgettable signs. But the verbiage of parliamentary speeches!"

"Well," said Nick, with a candid, reflective sigh, "you can rear a great structure of many things—not only of stones and