There are few scenes in the world so depressing as that which greets you
as you enter into the wide court before the church, called El Templo.
You are shut finally in by these iron-gray walls. The outside day has
given you up. Your feet slip on the damp flags. An unhealthy fungus
tinges the humid corners with a pallid green. You look in vain for any
trace of human sympathy in those blank walls and that severe facade.
There is a dismal attempt in that direction in the gilded garments and
the painted faces of the colossal prophets and kings that are perched
above the lofty doors. But they do not comfort you; they are tinselled
stones, not statues.
Entering the vestibule of the church, and looking up, you observe with a
sort of horror that the ceiling is of massive granite and flat. The
sacristan has a story that when Philip saw this ceiling, which forms the
floor of the high choir, he remonstrated against it as too audacious,
and insisted on a strong pillar being built to support it. The architect
complied, but when Philip came to see the improvement he burst into
lamentation, as the enormous column destroyed the effect of the great
altar. The canny architect, who had built the pillar of pasteboard,
removed it with a touch, and his majesty was comforted. Walking forward
to the edge of this shadowy vestibule, you recognize the skill and taste
which presided at this unique and intelligent arrangement of the choir.
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