. Paris as seen and described by famous writers ... n if they do not awaken the imagina-tion. We can never feel with regard to a severe classicalbuilding like the Pantheon the glow of romantic pleasurewhich fills sense and spirit in Notre-Dame or the Sainte-Chapelle. If there is emotion here it is of a different building has a stately and severe dignity; it is at oncegrave and elegant, but it is neither amusing as Gothicarchitecture often is by its variety, nor astonishing asGothic buildings are by the boldness with which they seemto contravene the ordinary conditions of matter. Theed
. Paris as seen and described by famous writers ... n if they do not awaken the imagina-tion. We can never feel with regard to a severe classicalbuilding like the Pantheon the glow of romantic pleasurewhich fills sense and spirit in Notre-Dame or the Sainte-Chapelle. If there is emotion here it is of a different building has a stately and severe dignity; it is at oncegrave and elegant, but it is neither amusing as Gothicarchitecture often is by its variety, nor astonishing asGothic buildings are by the boldness with which they seemto contravene the ordinary conditions of matter. Theedifice consists of a very plain building in the form of across, with a pediment on pillars at one end and a domerising in the middle. There are no visible windows, anenunciation that adds immensely to the severity and gravityof the composition, while it enhances the value of thecolumns and pediment, and gives (by contrast) great addi-tional lightness and beauty to the admirable colonnade be-neath the dome. There does not exist, in modern archi- 162. THE PANTHEON 163 tecture, a more striking example of a blank wall. Thevast plain spaces are overwhelming when seen near, andpositively required the little decoration which, in the shapeof festooned garlands, relieves their upper portion. At alittle distance the building is seen to be, for the dome, whata pedestal is for a statue ; and the projection of the tran-septs on each side of the portico, when the edifice is seenin front, acts as margin to an engraving. Had their plainsurfaces been enriched and varied with windows, the frontview would have lost half its meaning ; the richness of theCorinthian capitals and sculptured tympanum, and the im-portance of the simple inscription, draw the eye to them-selves at once. The situation of the Pantheon is the finest in Paris foran edifice of that kind. Only one other is comparable toit, Montmartre, on which is now slowly rising a church ofanother order, dedicated to the Sacre Coeur. The dome
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