DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0022
6 AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
It would have been a relief to one’s heart so to have
done; but though one often feels such impulses, one rarely
gives way to them. As we walked through the streets
home, how wondrously proud did we feel! It seemed
to us as though a sort of glory must surround us, as
though every one ought to read instantly upon our brows-
“ the happy pupils of a great master !”
June ~\Ath.—We were yesterday morning in the Hof-
Kapelle : a long, quiet morning. I had no conception how
sublimely beautiful is this chapel, although it had greatly
impressed me the other Sunday morning when we were
present at High Mass there. The crowd of worshipping
people, the strains of music, the incense, all produced an
overpowering effect; but the highest enjoyment was, in the
calmness of early morning, in solitude, in so perfect a silence
that one could hear one’s heart beat, to sit there alone
steeping one’s soul in the spirit of the place; being fanned,
as it were, by the angelic wings, being caught up into the
golden sunlight of those heavens, forgetting all but the
glorious abstractions before and above one, till Christ
seemed to speak as he stretched forth his benevolent arms,
till the Virgin’s eyes sent peace into the depths of one’s
soul, till the whole quire of angels, overshadowed with their
azure wings, burst into one anthem of praise and rejoicing !
It is not nature, at least not familiar nature such as we see
in our streets and our homes; it is an abstraction, an .exal-
tation, an ecstasy! It is prayer,—praise. It is typical;
the flowers are typical; the wings of the angels are wings
nowhere to be found on earth, but are angels’ wings; the
ark, the cross, the crown, the palm-branch, the lily, all the
hieroglyphics of our faith, speaking to our souls through our
hearts, are there, each chanting its appropriate hymn, subor-
dinate, yet vitally necessary to the accomplishment of the
whole great song of praise. This chapel is built in the
Byzantine style ■ the circular arches, the three domed
It would have been a relief to one’s heart so to have
done; but though one often feels such impulses, one rarely
gives way to them. As we walked through the streets
home, how wondrously proud did we feel! It seemed
to us as though a sort of glory must surround us, as
though every one ought to read instantly upon our brows-
“ the happy pupils of a great master !”
June ~\Ath.—We were yesterday morning in the Hof-
Kapelle : a long, quiet morning. I had no conception how
sublimely beautiful is this chapel, although it had greatly
impressed me the other Sunday morning when we were
present at High Mass there. The crowd of worshipping
people, the strains of music, the incense, all produced an
overpowering effect; but the highest enjoyment was, in the
calmness of early morning, in solitude, in so perfect a silence
that one could hear one’s heart beat, to sit there alone
steeping one’s soul in the spirit of the place; being fanned,
as it were, by the angelic wings, being caught up into the
golden sunlight of those heavens, forgetting all but the
glorious abstractions before and above one, till Christ
seemed to speak as he stretched forth his benevolent arms,
till the Virgin’s eyes sent peace into the depths of one’s
soul, till the whole quire of angels, overshadowed with their
azure wings, burst into one anthem of praise and rejoicing !
It is not nature, at least not familiar nature such as we see
in our streets and our homes; it is an abstraction, an .exal-
tation, an ecstasy! It is prayer,—praise. It is typical;
the flowers are typical; the wings of the angels are wings
nowhere to be found on earth, but are angels’ wings; the
ark, the cross, the crown, the palm-branch, the lily, all the
hieroglyphics of our faith, speaking to our souls through our
hearts, are there, each chanting its appropriate hymn, subor-
dinate, yet vitally necessary to the accomplishment of the
whole great song of praise. This chapel is built in the
Byzantine style ■ the circular arches, the three domed