se that object
immediately, and, being violently roused by this continued agitation, it
presents the mind with a grand or sublime conception. But instead of
viewing a rank of uniform pillars, let us suppose that they succeed each
other, a round and a square one alternately. In this case the vibration
caused by the first round pillar perishes as soon as it is formed; and
one of quite another sort (the square) directly occupies its place;
which however it resigns as quickly to the round one; and thus the eye
proceeds, alternately, taking up one image, and laying down another, as
long as the building continues. From whence it is obvious that, at the
last pillar, the impression is as far from continuing as it was at the
very first; because, in fact, the sensory can receive no distinct
impression but from the last; and it can never of itself resume a
dissimilar impression: besides every variation of the object is a rest
and relaxation to the organs of sight; and these reliefs prevent that
powerful emotion so necessary to produce the sublime. To produce
therefore a perfect grandeur in such things as we have been mentioning,
there should be a perfect simplicity, an absolute uniformity in
disposition, shape, and coloring. Upon this principle of succession and
uniformity it may be asked, why a long bare wall should not be a more
sublime object than a colonnade; since the succession is no way
interrupted; since the eye meets no check; since nothing more uniform
can be conceived? A long bare wall is certainly not so grand an object
as a colonnade of the same length and height. It is not altogether
difficult to account for this difference. When we look at a naked wall,
from the evenness of the object, the eye runs along its whole space, and
arrives quickly at its termination; the eye meets nothing which may
interrupt its progress; but then it meets nothing which may detain it a
proper time to produce a very great and lasting effect. The view of a
bare wall, if it be of a great height and length, is undoubtedly grand;
but this is only _one_ idea, and not a _repetition_ of _similar_ ideas:
it is therefore great, not so much upon the principle of _infinity_, as
upon that of _vastness_. But we are not so powerfully affected with any
one impulse, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are
with a succession of similar impulses; because the nerves of the sensory
do not (if I may use the expression) acquire a habit of repeating