If you want to know what Churches were made for, come down here on some great festival of the Virgin; but come alone! That kind of knowledge cannot be taught and can seldom be shared. We are not now seeking religion; indeed, true religion generally comes unsought. We are trying only to feel gothic art. For us the world is not a schoolroom or a pulpit, but a stage, and the stage is the highest yet seen on earth. In this church the old romanesque leaps into the gothic under our eyes; of a sudden, between the portal and the shrine, the infinite rises into a new expression, always a rare and excellent miracle in thought.


Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Henry Adams Quotes

If you want to know what Churches were made for, come down here on some great festival of the Virgin; but come alone! That kind of knowledge cannot...

If you want to know what Churches were made for, come down here on some great festival of the Virgin; but come alone! That kind of knowledge cannot...

If you want to know what Churches were made for, come down here on some great festival of the Virgin; but come alone! That kind of knowledge cannot...

If you want to know what Churches were made for, come down here on some great festival of the Virgin; but come alone! That kind of knowledge cannot...