dapted for a different
distance: first, for example, the great masses,--the buttresses and
stories and black windows and broad cornices of the tower, which give it
make, and organism, as it rises over the horizon, half a score of miles
away: then the traceries and shafts and pinnacles, which give it
richness as we approach: then the niches and statues and knobs and
flowers, which we can only see when we stand beneath it. At this third
order of ornament, we may pause, in the upper portions; but on the
roofs of the niches, and the robes of the statues, and the rolls of the
mouldings, comes a fourth order of ornament, as delicate as the eye can
follow, when any of these features may be approached.

Sec. XXVII. All good ornamentation is thus arborescent, as it were,
one class of it branching out of another and sustained by it; and its
nobility consists in this, that whatever order or class of it we may be
contemplating, we shall find it subordinated to a greater, simpler, and
more powerful; and if we then contemplate the greater order, we shall
find it again subordinated to a greater still; until the greatest can
only be quite grasped by retiring to the limits of distance commanding
it.

And if this subordination be not complete, the ornament is bad: if the
figurings and chasings and borderings of a dress be not subordinated to
the folds of it,--if the folds are not subordinate to the action and
mass of the figure,--if this action and mass not to the divisions of the
recesses and shafts among which it stands,--if these not to the shadows
of the great arches and buttresses of the whole building, in each case
there is error; much more if all be contending with each other and
striving for attention at the same time.

Sec. XXVIII. It is nevertheless evident, that, however perfect this
distribution, there cannot be orders adapted to _every_ distance of the
spectator. Between the ranks of ornament there must always be a bold
separation; and there must be many intermediate distances, where we are
too far off to see the lesser rank clearly, and yet too near to grasp
the next higher rank wholly: and at all these distances the spectator
will feel himself ill-placed, and will desire to go nearer or farther
away. This must be the case in all noble work, natural or artificial. It
is exactly the same with respect to Rouen cathedral or the Mont Blanc.
We like to see them from the other side of the Seine, or of the lake of
Geneva; from