I seemed to breathe ether. Treading on clouds, as it
were, I entered the cathedral, and the illusion vanished.
Friday, August 19. Antwerp to Paris.
Saturday, August 20. H. and I take up our abode at the house of M.
Belloc, where we find every thing so pleasant, that we sigh to think
how soon we must leave these dear friends. The rest of our party are
at the Hotel Bedford.
LETTER XLVII.
Antwerp.
MY DEAR:--
Of all quaint places this is one of the most charming. I have been
rather troubled that antiquity has fled before me where I have gone.
It is a fatality of travelling that the sense of novelty dies away, so
that we do not realize that we are seeing any thing extraordinary. I
wanted to see something as quaint as Nuremberg in Longfellow's poem,
and have but just found it. These high-gabled old Flemish houses, nine
steps to each gable! The cathedral, too, affects me more in externals
than any yet. And the spire looks as I expected that of Strasbourg
would. As to the grammarye of bells and chimes, I deliver that over to
Charlie. But--I have seen Rubens's painting! Before I came to Europe,
Longfellow said to me, "You must go to Antwerp, to see Rubens.
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