by way of monument to him.  The repairs are now nearly completed; and the interior of this chapter-house gave me the first idea, anywise adequate, of the splendor of these Gothic church edifices.  The roof is sustained by one great central pillar of polished marble—­small pillars clustered about a great central column, which rises to the ceiling, and there gushes out with various beauty, that overflows all the walls; as if the fluid idea had sprung out of that fountain, and grown solid in what we see.  The pavement is elaborately ornamented; the ceiling is to be brilliantly gilded and painted, as it was of yore, and the tracery and sculptures around the walls are to be faithfully renewed from what remains of the original patterns.

Exeter [Footnote:  From “Cathedral Days.”  By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Little, Brown & Co.  Copyright, 1887.]

BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD

A very obvious part of the charm of Exeter Cathedral lies in the fact that it has to be sought for.  It is so well and dexterously concealed from view, as one passes along High Street, that one might be some days in town without so much as suspecting that one of the finest cathedrals in England was a near neighbor.  It was almost by chance, I remember, that as we turned into a long, quaint alley-way, filled up with little, low shops, we caught a glimpse of a green plot of grass and some trees in the distance.  Our guiding instinct divined these to be the cathedral close....

To analyze the beauties of Exeter is only to add another note to one’s joy in them, their quality and rarity being of such an order as to warrant one’s cooler admiration.  The front is as unique in design as it is architecturally beautiful.  There is that rarest of features in English cathedrals—­an elaborately sculptured screen, thoroughly honest in construction.  In originality of conception this front is perhaps unrivalled, at least on English soil; there are three receding stories, so admirably proportioned as to produce a beautiful effect in perspective.  The glory of the great west window is further enhanced by the graduated arcades which have the appearance of receding behind it.  Above the west window rises a second and smaller triangular window in the gabled roof.

Thus the triangular motif is sustained throughout, from the three low doorways in the screen up to the far-distant roof.  This complete and harmonious front is nobly enriched by the splendid note of contrast in the two transeptal Norman towers, whose massive structural elegance and elaborateness of detail lend an extraordinary breadth and solidity to the edifice.