Gabriel saw in this a petrified symbol of prayer, rising direct to Heaven, without assistance or support.

The smooth, soft stone was used throughout the building, harder stone being used for the vaultings, and on the exterior the buttresses and pinnacles, as well as the flying buttresses like small bridges between them, were of the hardest granite, which from age had taken a golden colour, and which protected and supported the airy delicacy of the interior.

The two sorts of stone made a great contrast in the appearance of the Cathedral, dark and reddish outside, white and delicate inside.
The seminarist found examples of every sort of architecture that had flourished in the Peninsula.

The primitive Gothic was found in the earliest doorways, the florid in those del Perdon and de los Leones, and the Arab architecture showed its graceful horseshoe arches in the triforium running round the whole abside of the choir, which was the work of Cisneros, who, though he burnt the Moslem books, introduced their style of architecture into the heart of the Christian temple.
The plateresque style showed its fanciful grace in the door of the cloister, and even the chirruguesque showed at its best in the famous lanthorn of Tome, which broke the vaulting behind the high altar in order to give light to the abside.
In the evenings of the vacation Gabriel would leave the seminary, and wander about the Cathedral till the hour at which its doors were closed.

He delighted in walking through the naves and behind the high altar, the darkest and most silent spot in the whole church.