Spiers: Memoranda of an autumn tour in 1836
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CONT. SAT. 13 AUG
compare his talent & his work with Verbruggen & his worthy confrères of Flanders.
I believe we saw all the noted objects of curiosity in Antwerp: I can find nothing in guide books that we omitted. By virtue of a map too I am topographically acquainted with it. This is always necessary for true enjoyment.
By the chemin de fer we were conducted to Malines 11 miles in ¾ hour, along a country worthy of being travelled over by something slower. – Right happy were we at the forethought which led us out of the way thro its ?m nd tower into its Brabant streets & among the happy & bustling market people, everywhere dressed in the gayest colors & an universal couleur de rose induced thereby. Philosophers say that the presence of all colours affords white (the absence black) – but I maintain my theory of the couleur de rose & I challenge foreign travellers, who are able to judge of its effects, to contravert me.
And here we saw some churches, good & like all others here clean & as free from dust & dirt as if such things were not. But in fact these good people are not so unmindful of the liberality of providence as to neglect the use of his gifts & the water is sufficiently plentiful in its neighbours of Germany & France yet will they not gain for themselves a comfort & a good name. Pulpits again, confessionals, windows of taller & more Tintern Abbey height & fashion & pictures of Vandyk & Reubens, that would invite pilgrims from afar were they in England.
The tower of the cathedral soars up as lightly as the spire of Antwerp; the intended steeple has never been added, if it were, it would bear away the palm. The elegance of its buttresses & the Gothic open work prove the talent of the architect for this tower is alone 348 feet high. I find my notes swelling to so great an extent that I must forbear & leave to our companion
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