Joris-Karl Huysmans

“ Is not the sentiment exquisite of our Lord dwelling in the heart of the Virgin, the Ivory Tower of the Canticles? Is not ivory indeed the most admirable material to serve as a sanctum for the most pure white flesh of the Sacrament? ”

“ The spirits of whom you speak are the flower of a stem long nourished in a pious soil. The Spirit, of course, bloweth where it listeth, and may find a saint in the heart of a listless family; but this mode of operation must always be an exception. The novices you have known must certainly have had grandmothers and mothers who frequently incited them to kneel and pray by their side. ”

“ It is obvious, indeed, that children, slowly brought up from their earliest years, and sheltered from the world under the shadow of such a sanctuary as this at Chartres, must end in the blossoming of an unique flower."
And when Durtal told him of the impression made on him by the angelic service of the Mass, the Abbé smiled.
"Though our boys are not unique, they are no doubt rare. Here, the Virgin Herself trains them, and note, the little lad you saw is neither more diligent nor more conscientious than his fellows; they are all alike. ”

“ In fact, Jesus simply fills up all the room in their soul. Do not you think, Monsieur l'Abbé, that these youths occupy their bodies just enough for suffering and to expiate the sins of others? Without knowing it, they have been sent into the world to be safe tenements of the Lord, the resting-place where Jesus finds a home after wandering over the frozen steppes of other souls. ”

“ In considering the system of symbolism it is necessary to study the significance of numbers. The secrets of church building can only be discerned by recognizing the mysterious idea of the unity of the figure I., which is the image of God Himself. The suggestion of II., which figures the two natures of the Son, the two dispensations, and, according to Saint Gregory the Great, the two-fold law of love of God and man. Three is the number of the Persons of the Trinity, and of the theological virtues. Four typifies the cardinal virtues, the four Greater Prophets, the Gospels and the elements. ”

“ The towers, like the buildings they overshadow, are almost always placed on a height that commands the town, and they shed around them like seed into the soil of the soul, the swarming notes of their bells, reminding all Christians by this aerial proclamation, this bead-telling of sound, of the prayers they are commanded to use and the duties they must fulfil ”

“ The Old Testament is an anticipatory figure of all the New Testament tells us. The Mosaic dispensation contains, as in an allegory, what the Christian religion shows us in reality; the history of the People of God, its principal personages, its sayings and doings, the very accessories round about it, are a series of images ”

“ Saint Augustine expressly says: 'Anything that is set forth in an allegory is certainly more emphatic, more pleasing, more impressive, than when it is formulated in technical words.'"
"That is Mallarmé's idea too," thought Durtal, "and this coincidence in the views of the saint and the poet, on grounds at once analogous and different, is whimsical, to say the least."
"Thus in all ages," the Abbé went on, "men have taken inanimate objects, or animals and plants, to typify the soul and its attributes, its joys and sorrows, its virtues and its vices ”

“ Thanks to the science of symbolism a pile of stones may be a macrocosm.
"I repeat it, everything exists within this structure, even our material and moral life, our virtues and our vices. The architect takes us up at the creation of Adam to carry us on to the end of time. Notre Dame of Chartres is the most colossal depository existing of heaven and earth, of God and man. ”

“ And of course the period when human beings lived in closest intercourse with God—the Middle Ages—was certain to follow the revealed tradition of Christ, and express itself in symbolical language, especially in speaking of that Spirit, that essence, that incomprehensible and nameless Being who to us is God. ”

“ Hence it is quite evident that the artists of the Middle Ages added to the meaning they assigned to certain creatures and certain things, that of quantity, supporting one by the other, emphasizing or moderating a suggestion by this added-means, working back sometimes on a former idea, and expressing this duplication in a different form or concentrating it in the energetic conciseness of a cipher. ”

“ Either it develops the soul's taint and evolves in it the final ferments which putrefy it once for all, or it purifies the spirit and makes it clean and clear and exquisite. It may produce hypocrites or good and saintly people; there is really no medium. ”

“ Thus, in the paintings discovered in catacombs, the Lamb, the Pelican, the Lion, the Shepherd, all meant the Son; the Fish Ichthys, of which the characters express the Greek formula: 'Jesus, Son of God, Saviour,' figures, in a secondary sense, the believer, the rescued soul, fished out from the sea of Paganism; the Redeemer having told two of His Apostles that they should be fishers of men. ”

“ Its roof is the symbol of Charity, which covereth a multitude of sins; its slates or tiles are the soldiers and knights who defend the sanctuary against the heathen, represented by the storm, its stones, all joined, are, according to Saint Nilus, emblematic of the union of souls, or, as the Rationale of Durand of Mende has it, of the multitude of the faithful; the stronger stones figuring the souls that are most advanced in the way of perfection and hinder the weaker brethren, represented by the smaller stones, from slipping and falling. ”

“ Yes, by adopting a homœopathic pharmacopœia which still makes use of the foulest matter—the extract of wood-lice, the venom of snakes, the poison of the cockchafer, the secretions of the skunk and the matter from pustules, all disguised in sugar of milk to conceal their taste and appearance; the world of letters, in the same way, triturates the most disgusting things to get them swallowed without raising your gorge. ”

“ This question of number leads me to speak of theological enumeration, a peculiar element which plays a part in the varied subject of symbolism," the Abbé went on. "The allegorical science of numbers is a very old one. Saint Isidor of Seville, and Saint Augustine studied it. Michelet, who talks nonsense as soon as he has to do with a cathedral, is hard on the mediæval architects for their belief in the meaning of figures. ”

“ Man feels a certain enjoyment in giving proof of his intelligence, in guessing the riddle thus presented to him, and likewise in preserving the hidden truth summed up in a visible formula, a perdurable form. ”

“ The Foundation of the Clerks of Our Lady dates from 1853, or rather it was reconstituted in that year—for it existed in the Middle Ages—by the Abbé Ychard. Its purpose is to increase the number of priests by admitting poor boys to begin their studies. It receives intelligent and pious children of every nationality, if they are supposed to show any vocation for Holy Orders. ”

“ Those archæologists who have racked their brains to find it have vainly added together the measurements of naves and clerestories; they have not yet succeeded in formulating the idea they expected to see emerge from the sums total. ”

“ The balance of his personal account was struck by internal damage and mental disputations; if the soul was bruised and ice-bound, the mind was no less afflicted, no less fagged. It seemed to have grown dull since his residence at Chartres. The biographies of Saints which Durtal had intended to write, remained in the stage of charcoal sketches; they blew off before he could fix them. In reality he had ceased to care for anything but the Cathedral ”

“ As to the buttresses, they symbolize the moral force that sustains us against temptation; they are likewise the hope which upholds the soul and strengthens it; others see in them the image of the temporal powers who are called upon to defend the power of the Church ”