And now at last—this reverence done and thanks paid—we will turn from these tombs, and go out at one of the western doors—and so see gradually rising above us the immensity of the three porches, and of the thoughts engraved in them.
27. What disgrace or change has come upon them, I will not tell you to-day—except only the 'immeasurable' loss of the great old foundation-steps, open, sweeping broad from side to side for all who came; unwalled, undivided, sunned all along by the westering day, lighted only by the moon and the stars at night; falling steep and many down the hillside—ceasing one by one, at last wide and few towards the level—and worn by pilgrim feet, for six hundred years. So I once saw them, and twice,—such things can now be never seen more.
Nor even of the west front itself, above, is much of the old masonry left: but in the porches, nearly all,—except the actual outside facing, with its rose moulding, of which only a few flowers have been spared here and there[1] But the sculpture has been carefully and honourably kept and restored to its place—pedestals or niches restored here and there with clay; or some which you see white and crude,
- ↑ The horizontal lowest part of the moulding between the northern and central porch is old. Compare its roses with the new ones running round the arches above—and you will know what 'Restoration'
