ESTHETIC AXALYSIS OF AN OBELISK. 



153 



from somewhat similar exercises. They love to 

 roll huge stones close to the edge of a hill, and 

 then watch them tearing down its slopes, rooting 

 up the plants or shrubs, and thundering into the 

 valley beneath. At other times, they band to- 

 gether to fling a small bowlder into a lake, and 

 revel in the exhibition of power given by its 

 splash and roar. And this enjoyment is proba- 

 bly not confined to human beings ; for our con- 

 geners, the monkeys, delight in similar displays; 

 and those of them who are trained in the Malay 

 peninsula to pick and fling down cocoanuts from 

 the palms, chuckle and grin over each nut as it 

 falls, with true boyish merriment. 



But the most conspicuous manifestation of 

 these feelings is to be seen when the constructive 

 faculty comes into play. The first desire of chil- 

 dren in their games is to build something biff, a 

 visible trophy of their architectural skill. On 

 the sea-shore they pile up great mounds of sand, 

 or dig a pit surrounded by a mimic rampart. If 

 they can get at a heap of bricks or deal planks, 

 they ^ ill arrange them in a pyramid, and will 

 judge their success by the height which they can 

 attain. In doors, their ambition finds vent in 

 card-houses, or lofty edifices of wooden blocks. 

 In winter, the big snowball forms a never-failing 

 centre of attraction; while American and Cana- 

 dian boys obtain a firm material in the frozen 

 snow for neatly-built palaces, which sometimes 

 outlast an entire week. But, above all, it is im- 

 portant in every case to notice that children 

 invariably call the attention of older people to 

 these great effects which their hands and arms 

 have produced. The first element of the sublime 

 is possibly to be sought in this sympathetic admi- 

 ration for the big products of childish effort. 



Among the earliest works of human art 

 which arc yet left to us from the sacrilegious 

 hands of landlords and pashas, the same love for 

 something big is still to be noticed. The chief- 

 tain's body lies beneath a big tumulus, or its 

 resting-place is marked by a cromlech of big un- 

 hewed stones. The Gael crowns his mountain-top 

 with a monstrous cairn ; the Cymry pile the long 

 avenues of Carnac ; or perhaps a still earlier race 

 lift into their places the huge rocks of Stone- 

 henge. Italy and Greece still show us the Cyclo- 

 pean masonry of Volaterras and Tiryns; while 

 farther east, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the colos- 

 sal Memnon, the endless colonnades of Karnak, 

 bear witness to the self-same delight in bigness 

 for its own sake, as a monument of power, per- 

 sonal or vicarious. 



So here, almost without knowing it, we have 



t traced back our obelisk to the land of its birth, 

 and seen the main reasons which gave it origin. 

 All phallic speculations would obviously be out of 

 place here ; for even if we grant that the obelisk 

 is in its first conception a phallus (which is far 

 from certain), at any rate our present point will 

 be gained if objectors allow us in return that it 

 is a very biff phallus. Beginning as a rough 

 monolith, in all probability, the obelisk assumed 

 in Egypt the form in which we know it best, a 

 massive, tapering, sharply-pointed square column 

 of polished granite. A few more words must be 

 devoted to its historical growth before we pass 

 on to its modern aesthetic value. 



Egypt is the land of colossi. The notion of 

 bigness seems to have held a closer grip over the 

 despotic Egyptian mind than over any other 

 psychological specimen with which we are ac- 

 quainted. It does not need a journey up the 

 Nile to show us their fondness for the immense; 

 half an hour at the British Museum is quite suffi- 

 cient. Now, why did the Egyptians so revel in 

 enormous works of art ? This question is usually 

 answered by saying that their absolute rulers 

 loved thus to show the vastness of their power ; 

 and doubtless the answer is very true as far as 

 it goes, and quite falls in with our theory given 

 above. But it does not always happen that de- 

 spotic monarchs build pyramids or Memnons ; 

 and the further question suggests itself, What 

 was there in the circumstances of Egypt which 

 determined this special and exceptional display 

 of architectural extravagance ? As we cast about 

 for an answer, an analogy strikes us at once. 

 Taking the world as a whole, I think it will be 

 seen that the greatest architectural achievements 

 are to be found in the great plain countries ; and 

 that mountain districts are comparatively bare of 

 large edifices. The plain of Lombardy, the plain 

 of the Low Countries, the plain of Chartres, the 

 Lower Rhine Valley, the eastern counties — these 

 are the spots where our great European cathe- 

 drals are to be found ; and, if we pass over to 

 Asia, we shall similarly discover the country for 

 pagodas, mosques, and temples, in the broad 

 basins of the Euphrates, the Ganges, the Indus, 

 the Hoang-ho, and the Yang-tse-kiang. No 

 doubt castles and fortresses are to be found 

 everywhere on heights for purposes of defense ; 

 but purely ornamental architecture is most flour- 

 ishing in level expanses of land. Now, there is 

 no level expanse in the world, habitable by man, 

 so utterly unbroken and continuous as the valley 

 of the Nile. Herein, doubtless, we have a clew 

 to the special Egyptian love for colossal under- 



