Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/479

 THE MEDIEVAL CATHEDRALS 429 ! nacle or a statue of more than life-size which serves to clamp down the outer end of the flying arch. The long line of these I pinnacles and statues, the intricate tracery of the flying I buttresses, and the fantastic gargoyles, in which terminate ' the eaves-spouts that carry the rainwater off the roofs clear i of the stonework below, form a graceful and symmetrical I thicket of architecture and sculpture which half conceals I and half discloses the main building. We get new vistas and effects where the transept projects at a right angle and again i where the apse curves in a semicircle. The end of the I transept has another rose window and sometimes rather I elaborately decorated portals, so that it forms a sort of j combination of, or cross between, the features of the facade I and of the side of the nave. The exterior of the choir, too, is I often treated somewhat differently from the nave, although ' in general harmony with it. In short, to get a satisfactory appreciation of the exterior I vey it carefully from top to bottom. As the Psalmist says, "Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; ! that ye may tell it to the generation following." High aloft j on the arcades of the apse, the parapets of the roof, or the battlements of the towers, are not only figures of saints and j angels, but various animals and chimeras, goblins and ! demons, forces of the mysterious world of nature and of the other spiritual world, forces for evil as well as forces for good, since both exist in this world by divine permission. These, together with the bristling array of pinnacles and as it were, the sanctuary within or threaten those who remain without. He who wishes to see the interior of the house of God must enter in by the door and not try to climb up some other way. And the doorways, as we have already seen, are rich in sculpture to remind him of church legend and teaching and to prepare him for the yet more solemn sensation made by the spacious, stately vaults and grand perspective of the interior, and by the brighter, more
 * of a Gothic cathedral one must walk all around it and sur-
 * buttresses and the statues and gargoyles upon them, guard,