154 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



takings of every sort. Let us proceed to apply 

 it psychologically. 



Children at play on the sands do not pile up 

 their great mound in the midst of rocks and 

 bowlders. On the contrary, they choose a level 

 space, where no neighboring object overpeers 

 and casts into the shade their little colossus — 

 not by premeditation and concert, of course, but 

 by instinctive feeling that a big heap will look 

 bigger just here. So with primitive man : he 

 puts his tumulus not in the midst of natural ele- 

 vations which mock his puny efforts, but in some 

 wide plain where its size comes out by contrast 

 with the small objects around. And, as civiliza- 

 tion advances, it will naturally follow that man 

 will most indulge his love for conspicuous dis- 

 plays of material power in those places where 

 such displays produce the greatest eifect. In 

 mountain-countries, man's handiwork is apt to be 

 dwarfed by the proximity of Nature's majestic 

 piles, and his amour propre is not constantly 

 stimulated to some greater and yet greater achiev- 

 ment ; but in wide and level valleys the effects 

 he can produce are so relatively striking, that 

 every despot is urged on by an overwhelming 

 desire to outdo the triumphs of his predecessors. 

 From Timour's pyramid of skulls to the Arc de 

 l'Etoile in Paris one sees the same spirit of boast- 

 fulness, allied with the same predatory instinct, 

 running through the long line of columns, pillars, 

 triumphal arches, and Nelson monuments. 



A word must be added to prevent misconcep- 

 tion. Undoubtedly some splendid architectural 

 works are to be found in mountainous districts ; 

 but they are the exception, not the rule. And 

 even so they are apt to be rather military than 

 ornamental, owing their beauty more to inciden- 

 tal circumstances than to deliberate design. Be- 

 ginning with the rude earthworks which cap most 

 heights in the British Isles, we go on to the Hel- 

 lenic Acropolis and the Italian Arx, the ruined 

 castles of Rhineland, the fortress-crowned heights 

 of Stirling and Dumbarton, the frowning battle- 

 ments of Quebec and Gibraltar. When an eccle- 

 siastical character has been given to such build- 

 ings, it seldom quite obscures their original war- 

 like purpose. Most of the churches dedicated to 

 St. Michael, the militant archangel who delights in 

 airy pinnacles, are connected with adjoining for- 

 tresses; the cathedrals of Zion and Durham are 

 fronted by the castles of the prince-bishop ; and 

 the Parthenon or the Capitol does not make us 

 forget the real nature of the Acropolis and the 

 Arx. Such cases are very different from those of 

 Milan and Cologne, of the Memnonium and the 



Taj-Mahal. Moreover, it is worth noticing that 

 in mountainous or hilly regions the buildings 

 usually crown the highest points, so that Nature 

 aids art instead of obscuring it. If a tumulus 

 must be placed in a hill-country, it is piled on the 

 top of the most conspicuous elevation : and all 

 landmarks, from cairns to Hardy monuments, are 

 perched in similar situations. But this point is 

 one which will come in further on. 



Egypt, then, being the flattest of all flat coun- 

 tries, is the one where we might naturally expect 

 the taste for bigness to reach the most portentous 

 development. Aided by the existence of a simple 

 autocracy and an overwhelming military spirit, it 

 produced all those forms of colossi with which 

 we are so familiar ; and among them our present 

 subject, the obelisk. But so far we have only 

 considered its historical origin ; we have now to 

 inquire what are the points about it which give 

 it aesthetic beauty in our eyes at the present 

 day. 



In a formal analysis it would be necessary to 

 divide the elements of our feeling into various 

 classes — the sensuous, the emotional, and the in- 

 tellectual ; but for our immediate purpose it will 

 perhaps be better if we take the complex total in 

 its ensemble, and notice its different factors in the 

 order of their prominence. To do so properly, 

 let us begin with the obelisk in itself, viewed ab- 

 solutely, and apart from all considerations of lo- 

 cality, fitness, and association. 



As we look up at our present specimen, the 

 first point which strikes us is its size. It appeals 

 to the emotion of the sublime in its simplest 

 form, the admiration for the literally great in 

 man's handiwork. We think instinctively : " What 

 a hugh mass of stone this is ! How it towers up 

 into the air ! How many men it must have taken 

 to raise it to that heisrht ! " In short, one's earli- 

 est feeling is summed up in a note of admiration. 

 The Appuldurcombe Obelisk is formed of sepa> 

 rate stones, each of immense size, and we see 

 immediately how impossible it would be for our 

 unaided efforts to roll over even a single one of 

 them. But most other obelisks are monolithic, 

 and in that case our direct affection of the sub- 

 blime is far more vivid. We picture to ourselves 

 the difficulty of hewing that immense, unbroken 

 mass from the solid rock of its parent-quarry ; 

 the care that must have been taken to insure it 

 against fracture or chipping ; the mechanical 

 power involved in raising it successfully to its 

 final site, and planting it firmly on its pedestal. 

 The most conspicuous element in our aesthetic 

 pleasure on viewing an obelisk is clearly the sym- 



