Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/241

Rh more certain criterion. That criterion we shall endeavour to arrive at, observing, en passant, that the proceeding of the committee, in requiring architects to furnish them with a design without knowing the situation, is about as reasonable as requiring them to determine two unknown quantities from one equation. If they want the "ready made" style, they had better go to the first stonemason's, and select a superfine marble slab, with "Affliction sore long time he bore, Physicians was in vain," &c., ready cut thereon. We could hardly have imagined that any body of men could have possessed so extraordinarily minute a sum total of sense.

But to the point. The effect of all works of art is two-fold; on the mind and on the eye. First, we have to determine how the situation is to be chosen, with relation to the effect on the mind. The respect which we entertain for any individual depends in a greater degree upon our sympathy with the pervading energy of his character, than upon our admiration of the mode in which that energy manifests itself. That is, the fixed degree of intellectual power being granted, the degree of respect which we pay to its particular manifestation depends upon our sympathy with the cause which directed that manifestation. Thus, every one will grant that it is a noble thing to win successive battles; yet no one ever admired Napoleon, who was not ambitious. So, again, the more we love our country, the more we admire Leonidas. This, which is our natural and involuntary