220 Shadowings 



pendently of reverential feeling. Be this as it 

 may, such a feeling defined itself while I gazed ; 

 and at once the great grey trunks were changed 

 to the pillars of a mighty aisle ; and from altitudes 

 of dream there suddenly descended upon me the 

 old dark thrill of Gothic horror. 



Even before it died away, I recognized that it 

 must have been due to some old cathedral- 

 memory revived by the vision of those giant 

 trunks uprising into gloom. But neither the 

 height nor the gloom could account for anything 

 beyond the memory. Columns tall as those 

 palms, but supporting a classic entablature, could 

 evoke no sense of disquiet resembling the Gothic 

 horror. I felt sure of this, because I was able, 

 without any difficulty, to shape immediately the 

 imagination of such a facade. But presently the 

 mental picture distorted. I saw the architrave 

 elbow upward in each of the spaces between the 

 pillars, and curve and point itself into a range of 

 prodigious arches ; and again the sombre thrill 

 descended upon me. Simultaneously there flashed 

 to me the solution of the mystery. I understood 

 that the Gothic horror was a horror of monstrous 

 motion, and that it had seemed to belong to 

 the points of the arches because the idea of such 



