Salisbury Cathedral Quotes

Perhaps I shall not write my account of the Paleolithic at all, but make a film of it. A silent film at that, in which I shall show you first the great slumbering rocks of the Cambrian period, and move from those to the mountains of Wales, from Ordovician to Devonian, on the lush glowing Cotswolds, on to the white cliffs of Dover... An impressionistic, dreaming film, in which the folded rocks arise and flower and grow and become Salisbury Cathedral and York Minster...

A Cathedral Façade at Midnight Along the sculptures of the western wall I watched the moonlight creeping: It moved as if it hardly moved at all Inch by inch thinly peeping Round on the pious figures of freestone, brought And poised there when the Universe was wrought To serve its centre, Earth, in mankind’s thought. The lunar look skimmed scantly toe, breast, arm, Then edged on slowly, slightly, To shoulder, hand, face; till each austere form Was blanched its whole length brightly Of prophet, king, queen, cardinal in state, That dead men’s tools had striven to simulate; And the stiff images stood irradiate. A frail moan from the martyred saints there set Mid others of the erection Against the breeze, seemed sighings of regret At the ancient faith’s rejection Under the sure, unhasting, steady stress Of Reason’s movement, making meaningless.

When Camilla and her husband joined Prince Charles on a holiday in Turkey shortly before his polo accident, she didn’t complain just as she bore, through gritted teeth, Camilla’s regular invitations to Balmoral and Sandringham. When Charles flew to Italy last year on a sketching holiday, Diana’s friends noted that Camilla was staying at another villa a short drive away. On her return Mrs Parker-Bowles made it quite clear that any suggestion of impropriety was absurd. Her protestations of innocence brought a tight smile from the Princess. That changed to scarcely controlled anger during their summer holiday on board a Greek tycoon’s yacht. She quietly simmered as she heard her husband holding forth to dinner-party guests about the virtues of mistresses. Her mood was scarcely helped when, later that evening, she heard him chatting on the telephone to Camilla. They meet socially on occasion but, there is no love lost between these two women locked into an eternal triangle of rivalry. Diana calls her rival “the rotweiller” while Camilla refers to the Princess as that “ridiculous creature”. At social engagements they are at pains to avoid each other. Diana has developed a technique in public of locating Camilla as quickly as possible and then, depending on her mood, she watches Charles when he looks in her direction or simply evades her gaze. “It is a morbid game,” says a friend. Days before the Salisbury Cathedral spire appeal concert Diana knew that Camilla was going. She vented her frustration in conversations with friends so that on the day of the event the Princess was able to watch the eye contact between her husband and Camilla with quiet amusement. Last December all those years of pent-up emotion came flooding out at a memorial service for Leonora Knatchbull, the six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Romsey, who tragically died of cancer. As Diana left the service, held at St James’s Palace, she was photographed in tears. She was weeping in sorrow but also in anger. Diana was upset that Camilla Parker Bowles who had only known the Romseys for a short time was also present at such an intimate family service. It was a point she made vigorously to her husband as they travelled back to Kensington Palace in their chauffeur-driven limousine. When they arrived at Kensington Palace the Princess felt so distressed that she ignored the staff Christmas party, which was then in full swing, and went to her sitting-room to recover her composure. Diplomatically, Peter Westmacott, the Wales’s deputy private secretary, sent her avuncular detective Ken Wharfe to help calm her.

THE WARDEN This is the first novel in Trollope’s popular series known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire. The novel (Trollope’s fourth) was first published in 1855 and was reportedly inspired by a walk around Salisbury cathedral.

Paris became the center for twelfth-century philosophy because of the decision to allow any qualified master to set up a school there, on payment of a fee to the cathedral authorities.4 By the 1130s, as John of Salisbury’s account of his education there shows (Metalogicon II.10), the student could choose among a great variety of masters – rather than being constrained to a single one, however illustrious – and the work of each teacher was stimulated by contact and competition with the others. Outstanding thinkers of the 1130s and 40s, such as Peter Abaelard, Alberic of Paris, and Gilbert of Poitiers explicitly or implicitly adapt and criticize the others’ logical and metaphysical ideas.

Europe is the land of great cathedrals. Chartres and Notre Dame in France are world-class by any conceivable measure. Salisbury Cathedral in England is in a class by itself, despite its remote location. St. Peters in Rome is a mecca, and to a lesser extent Rheims in Germany. My amateur eye would unhesitatingly add to that hallowed list, Burgos Cathedral here in northern Spain. It is widely considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe. Inspired by the French cathedralism of the Middle Ages, it doesn’t look Spanish in the least.

The spire of Salisbury Cathedral. It is above twenty miles from here. I would not have believed it.

Day trip somewhere? Salisbury Cathedral, perhaps? I hear it has a rather impressive 123-metre spire. And a very old clock. Lots of Russians come over to see it, apparently.