John Bull on the Guadalquivir | Page 8

Daguilar's
house, with Maria by my side, I made up my mind that I would settle
my business during this visit to the cathedral. Yes, and I would so
manage the settlement that there should be no doubt left as to my
intentions and my own ideas. I would not be guilty of shilly-shally
conduct; I would tell her frankly what I felt and what I thought, and
would make her understand that I did not desire her hand if I could not
have her heart. I did not value the kindness of her manner, seeing that
that kindness sprung from indifference rather than passion; and so I
would declare to her. And I would ask her, also, who was this young
man with whom she was intimate--for whom all her volubility and
energy of tone seemed to be employed? She had told me once that it
behoved her to consult a friend in Seville as to the expediency of her
marriage with me. Was this the friend whom she had wished to consult?
If so, she need not trouble herself. Under such circumstances I should
decline the connection! And I resolved that I would find out how this
might be. A man who proposes to take a woman to his bosom as his
wife, has a right to ask for information--ay, and to receive it too. It
flashed upon my mind at this moment that Donna Maria was well
enough inclined to come to me as my wife, but --. I could hardly define
the "buts" to myself, for there were three or four of them. Why did she
always speak to me in a tone of childish affection, as though I were a
schoolboy home for the holidays? I would have all this out with her on
the tower on the following morning, standing under the Giralda.
On that morning we met together in the patio, soon after five o'clock,
and started for the cathedral. She looked beautiful, with her black
mantilla over her head, and with black gloves on, and her black

morning silk dress--beautiful, composed, and at her ease, as though she
were well satisfied to undertake this early morning walk from feelings
of good nature--sustained, probably, by some under- current of a deeper
sentiment. Well; I would know all about it before I returned to her
father's house.
There hardly stands, as I think, on the earth, a building more
remarkable than the cathedral of Seville, and hardly one more grand. Its
enormous size; its gloom and darkness; the richness of ornamentation
in the details, contrasted with the severe simplicity of the larger
outlines; the variety of its architecture; the glory of its paintings; and
the wondrous splendour of its metallic decoration, its altar-friezes,
screens, rails, gates, and the like, render it, to my mind, the first in
interest among churches. It has not the coloured glass of Chartres, or
the marble glory of Milan, or such a forest of aisles as Antwerp, or so
perfect a hue in stone as Westminster, nor in mixed beauty of form and
colour does it possess anything equal to the choir of Cologne; but, for
combined magnificence and awe-compelling grandeur, I regard it as
superior to all other ecclesiastical edifices.
It is its deep gloom with which the stranger is so greatly struck on his
first entrance. In a region so hot as the south of Spain, a cool interior is
a main object with the architect, and this it has been necessary to effect
by the exclusion of light; consequently the church is dark, mysterious,
and almost cold. On the morning in question, as we entered, it seemed
to be filled with gloom, and the distant sound of a slow footstep here
and there beyond the transept inspired one almost with awe. Maria,
when she first met me, had begun to talk with her usual smile, offering
me coffee and a biscuit before I started. "I never eat biscuit," I said,
with almost a severe tone, as I turned from her. That dark, horrid man
of the plaza--would she have offered him a cake had she been going to
walk with him in the gloom of the morning? After that little had been
spoken between us. She walked by my side with her accustomed smile;
but she had, as I flattered myself, begun to learn that I was not to he
won by a meaningless good nature. "We are lucky in our morning for
the view!" that was all she said, speaking with that peculiarly clear, but
slow pronunciation which she had assumed in learning our language.

We entered the cathedral, and, walking the whole length of the aisle,
left it again at the porter's porch at the farther end. Here we passed
through a low door on to