In fact, it is the work of Herrera, the architect who made
the Escorial so grim, and is the expression in large measure of his
austere mastery. If it had ever been finished it might have been quite
as dispiriting as the Escorial, but as it has only one of the four
ponderous towers it was meant to have, it is not without its
alleviations, especially as the actual tower was rebuilt after the fall
of the original seventy years ago. The grass springs cheerfully up in
the crevices of the flagging from which the broken steps falter to the
portal, but within all is firm and solid. The interior is vast, and
nowhere softened by decoration, but the space is reduced by the huge
bulk of the choir in the center of it; as we entered a fine echo mounted
to the cathedral roof from the chanting and intoning within. When the
service ended a tall figure in scarlet crossed rapidly toward the
sacristy. It was of such imposing presence that we resolved at once it
must be the figure of a cardinal, or of an archbishop at the least. But
it proved to be one of the sacristans, and when we followed him to the
sacristy with half a dozen other sightseers, he showed us a silver
monstrance weighing a hundred and fifty pounds and decked with statites
of our first parents as they appeared before the Fall.
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