I have since been comforted by reading in
Goethe's autobiography a criticism on its proportions quite similar to
my own. We climbed the spire; we gained the roof. What a magnificent
terrace! A world itself; a panoramic view sweeping the horizon. Here I
saw the names of Goethe and Herder. Here they have walked many a time,
I suppose. But the inside!--a forest-like firmament, glorious in
holiness; windows many hued as the Hebrew psalms; a gloom solemn and
pathetic as man's mysterious existence; a richness gorgeous and
manifold as his wonderful nature. In this Gothic architecture we see
earnest northern races, whose nature was a composite of influences
from pine forest, mountain, and storm, expressing, in vast proportions
and gigantic masonry, those ideas of infinite duration and existence
which Christianity opened before them. A barbaric wildness mingles
itself with fanciful, ornate abundance; it is the blossoming of
northern forests.
The ethereal eloquence of the Greeks could not express the rugged
earnestness of souls wrestling with those fearful mysteries of fate,
of suffering, of eternal existence, declared equally by nature and
revelation.
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