half the Cathedral. I suppose that the lovely carved choir-stalls are
imbedded somewhere within it. The grave of Jansen is certainly at
the bottom of it. The aspect of the scene, with the sky above, the
jagged walls, the interrupted arches, and the dusty piled mess all
around, is intolerably desolate. And it is made the more so by the
bright colours of the great altar, two-thirds of which is standing, and
the still brighter colours of the organ, which still clings, apparently
whole, to the north wall of the choir. In the sacristy are collected gilt
candelabra and other altar-furniture, turned yellow by the fumes of
picric acid. At a little distance the Cathedral, ruin though it is, seems
solid enough; but when you are in it the fear is upon you that the
inconstant and fragile remains of it may collapse about you in a gust
of wind a little rougher than usual.

You leave the outraged fane with relief. And when you get outside
you have an excellent opportunity of estimating the mechanism
which brought about this admirable triumph of destruction; for there
is a hole made by a 17-inch shell; it is at a moderate estimate fifty
feet across, and it has happened to tumble into a graveyard, so that
the hole is littered with the white bones of earlier Christians.

The Cloth Hall was a more wonderful thing than the Cathedral of St.
Martin, which, after all, was no better than dozens of other
cathedrals. There was only one Cloth Hall of the rank of this one. It
is not easy to say whether or not the Cloth Hall still exists. Its
celebrated three-story facade exists, with a huge hiatus in it to the
left of the middle, and, of course, minus all glass. The entire facade
seemed to me to be leaning slightly forward; I could not decide
whether this was an optical delusion or a fact. The enormous central
tower is knocked to pieces, and yet conserves some remnant of its