YALE ALUMNI WHEEKLY
315
THE TENEYCK PRIZE ESSAY.
Full Text of Arthur Huntington
Gleason’s **‘Notre Dame
of Paris.”
[Reprinted from April Lit.]
The World’s Exposition at Paris will
sum up the achievement of our modern
life. There the nations gather—each to
present its tale of plenty, scientific, in-
dustrial and artistic. But perhaps some
visitor, wearying of the huddled wealth,
will turn aside to stand to gaze before
a heavy building, facing west. It is
Notre Dame, the Cathedral of Paris—
perfect expression of the twelfth cen-
tury. So near the vastness of the mod-
ern exhibit, it seems meagre. But we
can vainly hope to vie with the wonder
of that building. It is the voice of all
the varied life of the Middle Age.
But the Notre Dame that is nobly
representative of its day and generation
is only a memory. For a mob destroyed
it, and a fool restored. A tinkered ruin
is a ghastly sight, and the Cathedral as
it stands to-day is disfigured and dis-
graced. Let us see it.as it faced the’
dying sun for the two centuries of its
youth, sincere, the record of a race.
Tt can tell us much of the people and
the time, for..a-work of art is auto-
biography not the less that it be wrought
in stone.
It is the great glory of architecture
that to no imperial genius belongs the
credit of the finished work. The poem
is thrown off at white heat by the
lonely rhapsodist. The cathedral was
built’as the coral reef is built. It was a
splendid piece of anonymous work, the
slow accretion of hundreds of laborers,
independent and equal, with all the years
of the future thrown open to them.
They elaborated the veriest trifle and
toiled over each detail, for work to them
was joyous. All Paris built. Indeed,
there can bé no true architecture unless
the nation labors. The seven lean cen-
turies that have followed those years of
superb production prove that noble
structures may not be made by a few
hired specialists.
The Cathedral of Paris is an embodi-
ment of the building spirit of the times.
It is no isolated wonder, the record of
a forced enthusiasm. But, just as pure
religion and undefiled is this, that a man
live out daily the high aspirations of
his Sabbath. mood, so the constructive
style of the Cathedral was one with that
of shop and home. Paris was filled
with the pointed arch. The saints that
walk in long procession over the portals
of Notre Dame graced each household
of the land. Every meanest alley had
a “Gothic profile.”
The builders and sculptors of the
Middle Age labored in sincerity. The
artist did not choose his subject: in-
differently from pagan literature or Holy
Writ. His theme lay heavy on his con-
science. He put his heart’s blood into
the work, which might prove crude,
but never tame. Hell was a very real
thing to him, and the terror of it must
be transmitted to the beholder. The
sinner is cowed into repentance by
chiméres and grinning gargoyles. And
the effect of these weird bits of sculp-
ture was tremendous. The quaint old
Latin record tells us of men moved to
tears by these sermons in stone.
But not all the sculpture threatened.
Much of it was beautiful and winning.
Lovingly the artist dealt with the
legends of saint and martyr, and the
Testaments—Old and New. His splen-
did earnestness, which rendered all his
works meet for reproof and instruction,
never permitted him to carve a face
empty of expression. He did not strive
for correct features, but rather to have
each countenance show forth an inner
emotion. Those hundreds of statues
that people Notre Dame lack the calm,
cold distance of the Greek type. The
expression is that of tenseness, strength
or struggle, for the artist realized that
the common people balked at an abstrac-
tion and craved the warmth of a per-
sonality. He sought to give them what
would make an instant appeal to their
eye, and so to their conscience. But he
never stooped to humor his audience.
His stern creatures of symbolic meaning
—those animals of the Patmos vision—
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have in them all the horror of old night
and waste places. He did into stone his
heart’s dream and _ strongest belief.
No single building sums up our life
to-day, but the Cathedral of Paris was
like a theatre where tragedy and
comedy and all the dramas of changing
existence were played in swift succes-
sion. It was here that the common peo-
ple were welcomed as worshippers. For
them were given Miracle Plays and the
Feast of Fools. “They read their Bible
on its walls.” All history was carved
pe
MASON TROWBRIDGE of Yale Debating
Team.
out on high. And so they came to love
the gloomy church, because it stood for
all in life that raised them from their
low estate.
Nor was it of less import to the great.
The pageantry of official life makes here
its choice display. Kings are baptized,
crowned, married and buried under its
gabled roof. All large endeavors must
use it as a platform from which to move
the world. Its walls echo to the elo-
quence of Heraclius, Patriarch of Jeru-
salem, as he preaches the Third Crusade.
It was here that knights stood guard
over their virgin arms until the morn-
ing broke. After tedious wars, hither
the princes come to fulfill their vows
and celebrate their victories. In splen-
did armor, seated high on his panoplied
steed, Philip of Valois rides down the
long-drawn aisle and on till he reaches
the altar—there to give thanks to the
Lord God of battles.
And what shall we say of the art that
rendered one building so supreme and
forced all other arts to play menial to
its needs? Such architecture as con-
secrated Notre Dame must ever be a
nation’s crown of glory. Thebes of old
was reared by melody. And surely no
man who gazes on the Cathedral’s twin
towers of aspiration but deems them
singing as they soar.
SPARRING AT YALE
A Plea to Encourage It—False No=
tions—Its Value,
To the Editor of YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY:
Sir: Cannot something be done to
awaken an interest in sparring at Yale?
The game is too good a one to be
spurned because of the disgraceful pub-
lic exhibitions seen of late years under
the Horton Law. In these contests—
when they have not been fakes—the
chief aim seems to have been to gain
a “knock-out” and not to cherish and
cultivate the art of self-defense. The
true boxer is not the man who takes a
drubbing in hope that he may ultimately
knock his opponent out, but the man
who, while protecting himself well,
makes his opponent beware of him.
One might as well claim as the type of
a fencer the backswords man of “Rob
of the Bowl,” instead of a Marignac, a
Pim or a Roux. For thirty-five years
I have boxed, and in all that time I
have never seen among gentlemen a
serious injury or an unseemly act. Hard
blows—lots of them—have been struck,
but they were taken, if unparried, as a
part of the game.
There is no sport equal to boxing for
developing the chest and body generally
and which will pay so good a dividend
in improved physique to a faithful lover. .
While strength plays a part in the game,
it is the skill and generalship which
counts most. And this very skill is
within the reach of many a man in the
University, whose only participation in
rowing, baseball or football is as a
spectator. Of course all cannot be
adepts, but with good instructors and a
faithful grounding in the principles of
the art, any one can give a good account
of himself. Instead of a dozen sparrers,
there ought to be at least two hundred
at Yale. Then an open meeting would
be a delight.
All antagonistic sports ought to re-
ceive a wholesome encouragement at
Yale; fencing, wrestling, quarter-staff
and boxing. All outdoor athletics
would be the better for the encourage-
ment of these sports, which can be fol-
lowed indoors during our long winters,
affording as they do in a generous
rivalry a relief from the perfunctory
character of ordinary indoor gymnastics.
The Faculty, I am informed, do not
encourage the public practice of the
sport, because of fatalities which have
occurred and the brutalities which dis-
graced the Horton Law sparring. The
regulations in weight of gloves can pre-
vent the former and all brutality could
be banished by the healthy tone govern-
ing Yale athletics.
Troy; N.Y. Apri 27.
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CESTUS.
The JUNE ATLANTIC
The INDEPENDENCE
ofithe EXECUTIVE
By £:x-President
CLELEAAND
In treating this subject of present vital interest, Mr. Cleveland
briefly traces the relation of the Chief Executive to the legisla-
tive branch of the government from the adoption of the Con-
stitution to our own time.
With characteristic decision, he points
out those duties which the President cannot evade or delegate to
others. A second paper, drawing largely from Mr. Cleveland's
own experience, will appear in the July ATLANTIC.
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