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After this our party went to see various other curious places in and near these two great towers. One of these places was called the model room, where there is a very large model of a plan for a church which Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul's, first designed. By most good judges, it is thought to be a better design than the one which was finally adopted. There were, besides this, various other curious models and old relics in this room.
The party also went up into the clock tower, by means of a very narrow, steep, and winding staircase, where there was only room for one to go at a time. The steps were of stone, but they were greatly worn away by the footsteps of the thousands of visitors that had ascended them.
There was a woman at the top of the stairs who had the charge of the clock room. This woman showed the party the wheels of the clock, which were of prodigious magnitude.5There were three bells—two that were called the small bells, though they were really very large, and one which was called the large bell. This last, Rollo said, was a monster.
"The small bells," said the woman, pointing up to the bells, which Rollo and Jennie saw far above their heads, in the midst of a maze of beams and rafters, "chime the quarter hours. The great bell strikes the hours, and tolls in case of the death of any member of the royal family."
"I don't see any thing very remarkable about them," said Rollo to his mother. "They are only three common bells."
"No," replied Mrs. Holiday, "the things themselves that are to be seen are nothing. It is only the curious places that we climb up to to see them, and the thought that we are in the veritable old St. Paul's."
After having talked some little time with the woman about the clock and the bells, and about the visitors that come from day to day to see them, the party descended again, by the dark and narrow stairway, to the great corridor by which they came to this part of the church, in order to visit the parts of the edifice connected with the dome and cupola, which are, in some respects, more interesting than all the rest.
Chapter X.
The Dome of St. Paul's
The dome of St. Paul's rises above the centre of the church, over the intersection of the arms of the cross. There are, in fact, two domes—an interior and an exterior one; and there are three galleries connected with them which strangers visit. The first of these galleries is an interior one. It passes round the church on the inside, just at the base of the interior dome. Our party were going first to visit this gallery.
They accordingly walked back through the whole length of the long corridor described at the close of the last chapter, and then turned in towards the centre of the building through a sort of passage way leading to a door which was pointed out to them by the guide. On entering this door, they found themselves ushered at once into the whispering gallery. This they found was a vast circular gallery, extending all round the interior of the church, directly under the dome.
"Ah," said Mr. George, "here we are in the whispering gallery!"
There was a man standing just inside the door. He accosted the party as soon as they came in.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "this is the whispering gallery. If you will pass round to the other side of it, and put your ears against the wall, I will show you the effect."
So, Mr. George leading the way, and the others following, they all passed round the gallery towards the other side. The gallery was not very wide, the space being only sufficient for two or three persons to walk abreast. There was a high balustrade on the edge of it, and on the other side a continuous seat against the wall. First Rollo and Jennie, running forward a little way, sat down on the seat to try it. Then, going forward again a little in advance of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday, they stopped to look over the balustrade. Rollo could look over it down upon the floor of the church far below. Jennie was not tall enough to look over the balustrade, and so she looked through.
"There!" said Rollo to Jennie, pointing down; "there's the place where we stood when we looked up to this whispering gallery at the time we first came in."
The party went on until they had walked half round the gallery and were exactly opposite the man who was standing at the door where they had entered. Here Mr. George stopped and sat down upon the seat.
THE WHISPERING GALLERY.
"Come," said he, "we must all sit down on this seat and put our ears against the wall."
Mrs. Holiday and the children did as Mr. George had directed, and listened. The man at the door, then putting his mouth to the wall, began to speak in a low tone,—almost in a whisper, in fact,—saying something about the building of the church; and though he was at a great distance from them,—so far, that if he had been in the open air it would have been necessary for him to have called out in a very loud voice to make them hear,—yet every word and syllable of his whisper was distinctly audible, the sound being brought round in some mysterious manner along the smooth surface of the wall.
"It is very extraordinary!" said Mrs. Holiday.
"It is, indeed!" said Mr. George.
Rollo himself, however, did not seem to be so much interested in this acoustic phenomenon as his uncle had been. His attention was attracted to the spectacle of the workmen, who were employed in repainting the inner surface of the dome, and whom he could now see at their work on the staging which he had looked up to from below. One side of the staging—the side towards the wall—was supported by a cornice, which it rested upon there. The other side—the side that was towards the centre of the dome—was suspended by ropes and pulleys, which came down through the lantern from a vast height above.
There was a ladder, the foot of which rested on this staging, the top of it being placed against the surface of the dome above. There was a man upon this ladder, near the top of it, at work on the ceiling, and two or three assistants on the staging at the foot of it.
Rollo and Jennie gazed some time with great wonder and awe at this spectacle, picturing to their imaginations the scene which would ensue if the ropes from the lantern above, by which the staging was suspended, were to break and let the staging, the ladders, and the men all down to the pavement below.
Presently Rollo and Jane, on looking up, found that Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday were going back; so they made haste to follow them. On their way towards the door they met other parties coming in to see the whispering gallery. They themselves went out; and, following the directions of the guide, they began to ascend again, by various intricate and winding staircases, to higher parts of the building still. After ascending to the height of four or five stories more, the party came to another gallery, which was, however, outside of the church instead of within it. This outer gallery is called the stone gallery; it is so called to distinguish it from another outer gallery, still higher up, called the golden gallery. You can see the places of both these galleries by looking at the engraving, as they are both outside of the building. The stone gallery is below the dome. You can see the balustrade surrounding it, just above the head of the statue which stands on the pediment in the centre of the building. There is a row of columns above this gallery which supports an entablature above them, that forms the base of the dome.
As soon as the party came out into the open air they began to realize how high they had ascended; for they found, on looking down into the neighboring streets, that the tops of the chimneys of the six-story houses there were far below them. And yet, as you will see by looking at the engraving, they had not, thus far, ascended more than half way to the top of the building.
The party walked round the stone gallery, looking off over the roofs of the houses in the city on every side. They could see the river, the bridges, vast ranges of warehouses, and long streets, with tiny omnibuses and carts creeping slowly along them, and men, like mites, moving to and fro along the sidewalks. They could see tall chimneys, too, pouring forth columns of smoke, and steeples and spires of churches, far below them.
"How high we are!" said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am high enough. I do not wish to go any higher."
In fact, it was somewhat frightful to be so high. It even made Mr. George dizzy to look down from so vast an elevation.
"Are we above, or below, the dome?" said Mrs. Holiday.
"We are above the inner dome," said Mr. George, "but below the outer one."
"I thought they were both the same," said Mrs. Holiday. "I thought the inner dome was the under side of the outer one."
"It ought to be," said Mr. George; "but it is not so in St. Paul's. There is a great space between, filled with masonry and carpentry."
Here Mr. George led the way up a flight of stone steps that ascended from the gallery to a door leading into the interior of the church again. When they had all entered they looked up and saw above and around them the commencement of a perfect maze of beams, piers, walls, buttresses, and braces, all blackened by the smoky London atmosphere, and worn and corroded by time. What was near of this immense complication was dimly seen by the faint light which made its way through the narrow openings which were left here and there in nooks and corners; but the rest was lost in regions of darkness and gloom, into which the eye strove in vain to penetrate.
This was the space between the inner and the outer dome. The walls which were seen were part of an immense cone of masonry which was built in the centre to sustain the whole structure. The lantern above, with the ball and cross surmounting it, rests on the top of this cone. The outer dome is formed around the sides of it without. This outer dome is made of wood; and the immense system of beams and braces which our party saw in the darkness around them were parts of the framework by which it is supported.
As our party came into this frightful-looking den of darkness and terror, they found themselves at the foot of a steep, but pretty broad and straight, flight of steps, that seemed to lead up into the midst of the obscure and gloomy maze, though the eye could follow it only for a short distance.
Mrs. Holiday hung back. She was evidently disinclined to go any farther.
"It is not worth while for us to go any farther is it?" said she, timidly.
"That is just as you please," said Mr. George. "It is rather frightful, I admit."
"Ah, yes, mother," said Rollo; "let us go up a little higher."
"No," said Jennie; "I don't want to go up any more. It frightens me."
Mrs. Holiday would have made great efforts to overcome her fears, out of regard to Rollo's wishes, if he had been there alone; but balanced between his desires to proceed and Jennie's fears, she seemed to be at a loss. She stood at the foot of the stairs, looking anxious and undecided.
Rollo began to go up the staircase.
"Take care, Rollo!" said his mother.
"There is no danger," said Rollo. "There is an excellent railing. I am only going up a little way to see how far these straight stairs go.
"I can see the top!" said he again, presently. "It is only a little way, and there is a good broad landing here. Come, Jennie! come up!"
"Would you go?" said Mrs. Holiday, looking to Mr. George.
"Yes," said Mr. George, "if you feel inclined. My rule always is, to allow the lady to do just as she pleases in going into places where she is afraid."
"I wish other gentlemen would always adopt that rule," said Mrs. Holiday.
"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Holiday.
"No," said Mr. George; "I am sure there cannot be any danger. The way up here is as public as almost any part of London; and people are going up and coming down continually, and no accidents are ever heard of. In fact, we know that the authorities would not admit the public to such a place until they had first guarded it at every point, so as to make it perfectly safe."
"Then," said Rollo, who had stood all this time listening on the stairs, "why don't you advise mother to come right up?"
"Because," said Mr. George, "she might suffer a great deal from fear, though she might not meet with any actual harm, or even fall into any real danger. I don't wish to have her suffer, even from fear."
"We might go up to the top of this first flight," said Mrs. Holiday. "I believe I can see the top of it."
Mr. George found, on looking up, that he could distinctly see the landing at the top of this first flight of steps, his eyes having now become somewhat accustomed to the dim light of the place. He fully approved of the plan of going up this flight, and he offered Mrs. Holiday his arm to assist her in the ascent.
"No," said she; "I would rather that you would help Jennie. I will take hold of the baluster, if you will lead Jennie."
This arrangement was adopted, and the whole party soon reached the first landing in safety.
In making this ascent, Mrs. Holiday found her fears diminishing rather than increasing, which was owing partly to the fact that, as her eyes became accustomed to the place, she began to discern the objects around her; so she went timidly on, Mr. George preceding her, and encouraging her from time to time by cheering words, up a series of staircases, which twisted and turned by the most devious windings and zigzags, wherever there appeared to be the most convenient openings for them among the timbers and the masonry. The party stopped from time to time to rest. At every such halt Mrs. Holiday seemed half discouraged, and paused to consider anew the question, whether she should go on any farther, or return. Mr. George left her entirely at liberty every time to decide the question just as she pleased; and she always finally concluded to go on.
Thus they continued to ascend for more than a hundred feet above the stone gallery; and at length they came out upon another outside gallery, which is formed around the top of the dome, at the foot of what is called the lantern. You can see the place of this gallery in the engraving; though it is so high that the gallery itself, though surrounded by a massive balustrade, can scarcely be discerned. A person standing there would be wholly invisible. This is called the golden gallery. It receives that name from the fact that it is surrounded by a gilded balustrade.
Of course the view from this upper gallery was far more extended than the one below; but our party did not enjoy it much, it made them so giddy to look down; and although the gilded balustrade was extremely massive, and was built into the stonework in the firmest and most solid manner, Mrs. Holiday, and even Mr. George, were afraid to go near it; and the idea of leaning upon it, to look over, seemed perfectly frightful.
There were some young men in the gallery when our party came up. They were just preparing to continue their ascent, under the charge of a guide, up to the cupola. The guide seemed desirous of taking all who were going in one party. So he turned to Mr. George and said,—
"Do your party wish to go up into the ball?"
Mr. George looked towards Mrs. Holiday.
Mrs. Holiday was very unwilling to prevent Mr. George from ascending as high as he desired, but she was afraid to go up any farther herself, and she was unwilling to stay where she was with the children while he should be gone. It seemed as if the whole of the lofty mass on which she was standing was toppling, ready to fall, and that the first breath of wind that should come would blow it down, cupola, dome, and galleries, all together.
"How much farther is it to the top?" said she, timidly.
"A hundred feet," said the guide.
Mrs. Holiday looked more alarmed than ever.
"A hundred feet!" exclaimed Mr. George. "Why, I thought we were nearly at the top; and yet there are a hundred feet more! A hundred feet is equal to a house ten or twelve stories high!
"I don't know that it is worth while for us to go up any higher," continued Mr. George, speaking to Mrs. Holiday, "unless you wish it."
"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am sure I don't wish to go any higher."
"Very well," said Mr. George to the guide; "we will not go."
So the guide set out with the young men alone.
"There cannot be any pleasure in it, I am sure," said Mr. George.
"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "there is more pain than pleasure in coming up here!"
"Nor any advantage, that I can see," added Mr. George.
"Except to be able to say," continued Mrs. Holiday, "when we get back to America, that we have been up into the ball."
"Yes," said Mr. George; "and that, I think, is rather a doubtful advantage for a lady. The class of ladies that like to boast of having gone where other ladies seldom go are generally of rather a masculine character; and I don't think they gain a very desirable kind of reputation by performing such exploits."
Whether Mr. George was correct or not in this reasoning, it had the effect of relieving Mrs. Holiday very considerably of any feeling of disappointment she might have experienced in not having ascended to the highest accessible point in the building; and so, after pausing a few minutes in the golden gallery to take hurried glances at the surrounding views and to recover breath, the party went back to the inside of the building and commenced the descent. They stopped occasionally to sit down and rest on the benches which they found placed at convenient distances, in various nooks and corners, in the course of the descent. They encountered several other parties coming up; and sometimes they were passed by parties who were going down, and who went faster than they. One of these parties consisted of two young men. Mr. George asked them if they went up into the ball. They said they did. He asked them if the ascent was very steep and difficult.
"Yes," said one of the young men; "it made my limbs quake, I can assure you."
"Did you actually go into the ball?" said Mr. George.
"Yes," said the young man.
"How large is the space inside?" asked Rollo.
"Large enough to hold eight men," said he. "There were six in it when we were there, and there was room for two more."
If you turn to the engraving, and look at the ball under the cross as it is represented there, you will be surprised to think that it is large enough to contain eight men; but such is the fact. It is its immense height from the ground that makes it appear so small.
Rollo and Jennie began to count the steps as they came down, and they went on very patiently in this work until they got to between one hundred and sixty and one hundred and seventy; and here, in some way or other, they lost their reckoning, and so gave up the attempt. Rollo, however, afterwards found from his guide book that the whole number of steps from the ground to the ball was six hundred and sixteen.
The party at length reached the floor of the church again in safety. They then went down to see what was called the crypt, which they found to be nothing more nor less than a range of subterranean chambers, precisely like the cellars of a great house, only they were filled with tombs, and monuments, and old effigies of dead crusaders, some standing up and some lying down, some new and some old, some whole and others broken to pieces. The whole place was damp, chilly, and disagreeable; and the party were very glad to escape from it and to get back to the light of day.
Chapter XI.
The Aristocracy
"What do you suppose that man is doing upon that ladder?" said Rollo to Mr. George.
Rollo and Mr. George were walking together in one of the streets at the West End, near St. James's Palace, when Rollo asked this question, on the morning of the day after they paid their visit to St. Paul's. The man on the ladder was placing some lamps on a frame over the door of a large and beautiful mansion, as if for an illumination. The lamps were disposed in such a manner as to form a great star, with the letters "V. R." on a very large scale, one on each side of it.
"The V. R. stands for Victoria Regina," said Mr. George; "that is, Victoria Queen."
"Then it must be that they are going to have an illumination in honor of the queen," rejoined Rollo. "I have seen two more of such frames putting up before this."
On going along a little farther, Rollo pointed out another house to Mr. George where lamps were arranged for an illumination; and then, presently, another. Mr. George accordingly stopped to ask a policeman what it meant.
"It is the queen's birthday," said the policeman; "and this evening they illuminate the houses."
"I'm glad of that," said Rollo. "We will come out and see; won't we, uncle George?"
The part of the town where Mr. George and Rollo were walking at this time—the vicinity of St. James's Square—is the region occupied by the palaces and mansions of some of the higher nobility of England. These residences are built in a very open manner, standing, many of them, apart from each other, and being in the midst of parks, gardens, terraces, and pleasure grounds, which give to the views that are presented to the eye of the stranger in walking among them a most enchanting variety. As Mr. George and Rollo passed along the streets among these residences, they soon began to observe other marks of excitement besides the illuminations. They saw unusual numbers of well-dressed people walking along the sidewalks; and at length, on turning a corner, they came suddenly into a street where the margin of the sidewalk, for a long distance, was lined with crowds of people,—men, women, and children,—who seemed to be waiting for something to pass by. They were, in fact, waiting to see the queen.
As has already been said, it was the queen's birthday; and it is the custom for the queen, on her birthday, to hold what is called "a drawing room," in which she receives the calls and congratulations of the nobility of England, the foreign ministers resident in London, and of such strangers as are of sufficient distinction, in respect to their wealth, their rank, or their fame, to entitle them to the honor of being presented to her majesty. The queen does not receive these visits in Buckingham Palace, which is the principal place of her residence in London, but in St. James's Palace, which is an older edifice, formerly the residence of the royal family, but now, since Buckingham Palace was built, reserved for official and state purposes and occasions. St. James's Palace is a large and irregularly-shaped building, of brick. It has nothing special to distinguish it from the other buildings that surround it, and which, in fact, some of them, seem to be so connected with it, by courts, and passages, and wings, and arcades, that it is difficult to tell where the palace begins or ends. In fact, no one would suppose that it was a palace at all were it not for the soldiers, in red uniforms, which are to be seen at all times walking to and fro, or standing sentry, before their little boxes, at every door and gateway.
Buckingham Palace, on the other hand, is farther out of town. It stands by itself, on the margin of one of the immense parks for which London is so famous—or, rather, on the margin of two of them. Before it is St. James's Park, with its green fields and its winding walks, its groves and copses of trees and shrubbery, its beds and borders of flowers, and above all its beautiful little lake, with gayly-painted boats to sail upon it, and flocks of ducks, and geese, and swans, of every form and color, swimming in all directions over the surface of the water. On the side of it is the Green Park—a broad expanse of the smoothest and richest green, intersected with drives and walks, all crowded with promenaders. Behind the palace is a large enclosure, which contains the private gardens of the palace itself. These gardens are planted and adorned in the most magnificent manner; but they are guarded on every side by a very high wall, and by a continuous line of trees, which bear a very dense and lofty mass of foliage, so that the public can never see what is in them.
Here the queen resides when she is in town, going only to the ancient palace of St. James to attend meetings of her cabinet council, to hold drawing rooms and levees, and to be present at other great ceremonies of state. Whenever occasions occur on which her majesty is expected to proceed from Buckingham Palace to St. James's, great numbers of people usually assemble in the streets between to see the royal procession pass by.
Mr. George, having learned by inquiry what it was that the people were waiting to see, determined that he and Rollo would wait too. So they took their places in a convenient position, near a lamppost, and waited for her majesty's coming.
They had not been there long before a great movement among the crowd indicated that the royal retinue was in sight; and a moment afterwards some horsemen, elegantly dressed and caparisoned, came rapidly on, followed by a train of two or three carriages very elegantly decorated, and with servants in splendid liveries before and behind, and finally by other horsemen, who brought up the rear. The whole cortége went by so rapidly that Rollo could scarcely distinguish any thing in detail. It passed before his eyes like a gorgeous vision, leaving on his mind only confused images of nodding plumes, beautiful horses, gay footmen and coachmen clothed in the gayest colors, and carriages plain and simple in style, but inexpressibly elegant and graceful in their forms and in their motions.
There was a moment's pause after the cortége went by, which was, however, broken at length by an exclamation of wonder and delight from Rollo.
"Hi—yi!" said he. "I should like to be the queen, uncle George!"
"Should you?" said Mr. George.
"Yes," said Rollo; "or else one of the queen's soldiers, to ride on such elegant horses as those."
As soon as the cortége had passed, the crowd began immediately to disperse; and yet they did not go away at once, but seemed to linger along the sidewalks to gaze at the various single carriages which from time to time were passing by. These carriages were all very elegant in form and equipment, and had servants in gay liveries mounted upon them before and behind, and they were often preceded and followed by outriders. These equipages, as they passed to and fro along the street, seemed strongly to attract the attention of the bystanders. The children, particularly, stopped to gaze upon each one of them, as it came by, with countenances full of wonder and admiration.
"There are a great many carriages out to-day," said Mr. George.
"And splendid carriages they are, too," said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George; "the carriages and horses of the English aristocracy are the finest in the world."
Not very long after this, Mr. George and Rollo, in the course of their walk, happened to come to a place in the street that was opposite to the entrance to St. James's Palace, where the carriages set down the company that were going to attend the drawing room. There were a great many people assembled on the sidewalks all around to see the company as they descended from their carriages. The scene, in fact, presented quite an extraordinary spectacle.
The carriages, which were of every form and size, arrived in very rapid succession, and drove into a sort of court yard to the door where the company entered. There were soldiers and policemen on duty, to prevent the public from going into the yard. The carriages, however, as they drove up to the door, and the company, as they descended from them, could all be seen very distinctly from the street. There were footmen behind most of the carriages, who, as soon as the horses drew up, stepped down from their places and opened the carriage door. The gentlemen and ladies were all dressed very gorgeously,—the gentlemen being clothed in military uniforms, or robes of office, or in embroidered and gilded court dresses,—each dress being different, apparently, from all the rest. The liveries, too, of the coachmen and of the footmen, and the harnesses and trappings of the horses, were all exceedingly splendid and gay.
Mr. George and Rollo, with some hundreds of other spectators who had assembled to witness the scene, stood gazing upon it with great interest for nearly an hour. When, at length, their curiosity had become in some measure satisfied, they found that they were beginning to be very tired of standing so long; and so they left the place, and walked away slowly towards home.
"What do you mean by aristocracy?" said Rollo to Mr. George, as they walked along. "Does it mean the rich people?"
"No," replied Mr. George, "not exactly that. It means rich people who govern. In the United States there are a great many very rich people; but they are not called an aristocracy, because they do not govern. Every thing there is decided by voting, and every person that is a man has an equal right with all the rest to his vote; at least this is the case in the Northern States. The rich have no more power than the rest; so they do not constitute an aristocracy in the correct and proper meaning of the term. An aristocracy in any country, strictly speaking, is a class of wealthy people who govern it, or who are at least possessed of exclusive privileges and power."
"Suppose the class of people who govern the country should be poor," asked Rollo; "would that be an aristocracy?"
"Such a thing is impossible in the nature of things," said Mr. George; "for if any one class gets the control of the government of a country, they will of course manage it in such a way as to get the wealth and the honors mainly to themselves. I should do so. You would do so. Every body would do so. It is human nature. Beings that would not do so would not be human."
"And do the English aristocracy manage in that way?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George. "The state of the case, as I understand it, is just this: A number of centuries ago, a certain prince from France—or rather from Normandy, which is a part of France—came over to England with an army and conquered the country. His name was William; and on account of his conquest of England, he received the name of William the Conqueror. He parcelled out a great portion of the land, and all the offices and powers of government, among the nobles and generals that came with him; and they and their descendants have held the property and the power to the present day. Thus England, so far as the great mass of the people are concerned, is to be considered as a conquered country, and now in the possession of the conquerors. It is governed mainly by an aristocracy which descended from, and represents, the generals that conquered it. In fact, the highest honor which any man can claim for himself or his family in England is to say that his ancestors came in with the Conqueror. It is a sort of phrase."
