r arms in
precisely the same position at each side, your head upright your body
straight; divide your hair exactly in the middle, and get it as nearly
as you can into exactly the same shape over each ear, and you will see
the effect of accurate symmetry; you will see, no less, how all grace
and power in the human form result from the interference of motion and
life with symmetry, and from the reconciliation of its balance with its
changefulness. Your position, as seen in the mirror, is the highest type
of symmetry as understood by modern architects.

In many sacred compositions, living symmetry, the balance of harmonious
opposites, is one of the profoundest sources of their power: almost any
works of the early painters, Angelico, Perugino, Giotto, &c., will
furnish you with notable instances of it. The Madonna of Perugino in the
National Gallery, with the angel Michael on one side and Raphael on the
other, is as beautiful an example as you can have.

In landscape, the principle of balance is more or less carried out in
proportion to the wish of the painter to express disciplined calmness.
In bad compositions as in bad architecture, it is formal, a tree on one
side answering a tree on the other; but in good compositions, as in
graceful statues, it is always easy, and sometimes hardly traceable. In
the Coblentz, however, you cannot have much difficulty in seeing how the
boats on one side of the tower and the figures on the other are set in
nearly equal balance; the tower, as a central mass uniting both.

3. THE LAW OF CONTINUITY.

Another important and pleasurable way of expressing unity is by giving
some orderly succession to a number of objects more or less similar. And
this succession is most interesting when it is connected with some
gradual change in the aspect or character of the objects. Thus the
succession of the pillars of a cathedral aisle is most interesting when
they retire in perspective, becoming more and more obscure in distance;
so the succession of mountain promontories one behind another, on the
flanks of a valley; so the succession of clouds, fading farther and
farther towards the horizon; each promontory and each cloud being of
different shape, yet all evidently following in a calm and appointed
order. If there be no change at all in the shape or size of the objects,
there is no continuity; there is only repetition--monotony. It is the
change in shape which suggests the idea of their being individ