That cathedral, it is true, was bent on outstripping its sisters.
"Springing into the air at one flight, when it reached the upper spaces it tottered and fell.

You know the portions which survived the wreck of that mad attempt ?" "Yes, Monsieur l'Abbe; and that sanctuary and that apse, so narrow and restricted, with columns so close together, and the iridescent light, like filmy soap bubbles, from walls which seem made of glass, disturb and bewilder you; on first entering it gives the impression of indescribable uneasiness, a sort of anxious and distressed anticipation.
And in truth it is neither quite healthy nor sound; it seems only to live by dint of aids and expedients; it struggles to be free and is not; it is long drawn and not ethereal; it has--how shall I express it ?--large bones.

You remember the pillars?
They are like the smooth muscular trunks of beech trees, which have also the angular edges of reeds.

How different from the harp-strings which form the aerial skeleton of Chartres! No, in spite of all, Beauvais, like Reims, and like Paris, is a fleshy cathedral; it has not the elegant leanness, the perennial youthfulness of form, the Patrician stamp of Amiens, and more especially of Chartres! "And have you not been struck, Monsieur l'Abbe, by the way in which the genius of man has constantly borrowed from Nature in the construction of his basilicas?
It is almost certain that the arcades of the forest were the starting-point for the mystic avenues of our aisles.

And again, look at the pillars.