Music, they say, does something to the soul, filling it full of
unsatisfied but transcendent desires, and making it guess, in glimpses
that mix and fail, the soul's ultimate reward or destiny. Here, in
Perigeux of the Perigord, where men hunt truffles with hounds, stone set
in a certain order does what music is said to do. For in the sight of this
standing miracle I could believe and confess, and doubt and fear, and
control, all in one.
Here is, living and continuous, the Empire in its majority and
its determination to be eternal. The people of the Perigord, the
truffle-hunting people, need never seek civilization nor fear its death,
for they have its symbol, and a sacrament, as it were, to promise them
that the arteries of the life of Europe can never be severed. The arches
and the entablatures of this solemn thing are alive.
It was built some say nine, some say eight hundred years ago; its apse was
built yesterday, but the whole of it is outside time.
In human life, which goes with a short rush and then a lull, like the wind
among trees before rains, great moments are remembered; they comfort us
and they help us to laugh at decay. I am very glad that I once saw this
church in Perigeux of the Perigord.
When I die I should like to be buried in my own land, but I should take it
as a favour from the Bishop, who is master of this place, if he would come
and give my coffin an absolution, and bring with him the cloth and the
silver cross, and if he would carry in his hand (as some of the statues
have) a little model of St.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180