CH. V THE LAMP OF LIFE 217

(the largest) : c :: c : a :: a : b. It is wonderful how much of the grace of the whole depends on these variations.

§ 23. Each of the angles, it was said, is filled by an animal. There are thus 70 4=280 animals, all different, in the mere fillings of the intervals of the bas-reliefs.¹ Three of these intervals, with their beasts, actual size, the curves being traced upon the stone, I have given in Plate XIV.

I say nothing of their general design, or of the lines of the wings and scales, which are perhaps, unless in those of the central dragon, not much above the usual commonplaces of good ornamental work; but there is an evidence in the features of thoughtfulness and fancy which is not common, at least now-a-days. The upper creature on the left is biting something, the form of which is hardly traceable in the defaced stone-but biting he is; and the reader cannot but recognise in the peculiarly reverted eye the expression which is never seen, as I think, but in the eye of a dog gnawing something in jest, and preparing to start away with it: the meaning of the glance, so far as it can be marked by the mere incision of the chisel, will be felt by comparing it with the eye of the couchant figure on the right, in its gloomy and angry brooding. The plan of this head, and the nod of the cap over its brow, are fine; but there is a little touch above the hand especially well meant: the fellow is vexed and puzzled in his malice; and his hand is pressed hard on his cheek bone, and the flesh of the cheek is wrinkled under the eye by the pressure. The whole,² indeed, looks wretchedly coarse, when it is seen on a scale in which it is naturally compared with delicate figure etchings; but considering it as a mere filling of an interstice on the outside of a cathedral gate, and as one of more than three hundred (for in my estimate I did not include the outer pedestals), it proves very noble vitality in the art of the time.

¹ [For some further calculations and measurements with regard to these carvings, see Theodore Andrea Cook’s Story of Rouen, 1899, pp. 122-124.]

² [The MS. reads :-

“...pressure. The dragon in the centre, ready for a spring, is very fierce and fine, the wrinkles about the mouth especially. There indeed seems nothing remarkable in it when it is seen...”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]