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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



part of the monotonous Ontario basin. Brock's 

 monument stands at the very edge of the higher 

 lands before they dip into this low-lying plain. 

 If it stood in Waterloo Place, the visitor would 

 pass it by with the same carelessly contemptuous 

 glance which ho vouchsafes in passing to the 

 Duke of York's Column. But on the banks of 

 a groat American stream the righteous indigna- 

 tion which man naturally feels toward a sup- 

 porter with nothing to support is waived in favor 

 of other associations. In the midst of a wide, 

 half-tilled expanse, still dotted with stumps of 

 trees and interspersed with shabby wooden vil- 

 lages, that tall shaft of sculptured stone, in mem- 

 ory of a British soldier, has an air of European 

 solidity and ancient civilization that contrasts 

 well with the shuffling modern appearance of 

 everything else in the prospect. All other hu- 

 man additions to the neighborhood of Niagara — 

 the big wooden hotels with their sham cupolas, 

 the line of bazaars with their sham Indians, the 

 paper-mills of Luna Island, with their intense- 

 ly realistic appurtenances — are simply hideous. 

 But that one touch of familiar European art, 

 spurious as it is in itself, can hardly fail to raise 

 a thrill of pleasurable surprise and grateful rec- 

 ognition in every visitor from the older lands 

 across the Atlantic. 



Perhaps it is this very consciousness of con- 

 trast which fills Greenwood and Mount Auburn 

 with Ionic temples or Koman mausoleums. Bad 

 as is generally the taste displayed in such struct- 

 ures and the choice of their position, an occasion- 

 al success half redeems the many failures. A 

 monument which struck me much in this respect 

 is situated in the graveyard of a church in the 

 mountain district of Jamaica. As you ride down 

 from the Newcastle cantonment you pass through 

 a narrow horse-path, almost choked with tropical 

 ferns, wild brushwood, and spreading aloe-plants. 

 But when you reach this little churchyard, neatly 

 kept and planted with English-looking flowers, 

 you see a plain obelisk of polished Aberdonian 

 granite, whose simple gracefulness could not of- 

 fend the most fastidious eye, while the evidence 

 of care and comparative culture strikes the mind 

 at once with a pleasant relief. 



There are many other cases nearer home of 

 similar erections which might be examined, did 

 space permit, such as the Baxter monument near 

 Kidderminster, the various London and Paris 

 columns, the Colonne de la Grande Armee at Bou- 

 logne, and so forth. But the instances already 

 given will suffice to mark the complexity which 

 is introduced by consideration of surrounding 



circumstances. It would be interesting, too, to 

 compare them as regards their origin and purpose, 

 their harmonies and contrasts, with the Highland 

 cairn and the Welsh maen-ltir, the white horses 

 of Calne and Wantage, the arches of Titus and 

 Severus, the pillars of Byzantium, the minarets 

 of Delhi, the pagodas of Kew and Peking, the 

 campanili of Italy, the steeples of our own village 

 churches, and the Albert, Scott, Stewart, and 

 Martyrs' memorials. But such a treatment of 

 the subject would probably prove too exhaustive 

 for even the most minutely conscientious student, 

 and perhaps their relations are sufficiently hinted 

 even in the brief list we have just strung togeth- 

 er. Let us pass on to see the net results of our 

 previous inquiry. 



At first sight few esthetic objects could seem 

 simpler of explanation than an obelisk. Com- 

 pared with an historical painting, or a lyric poem, 

 or an operatic aria, or even a landscape, it is but 

 a single element by the side of the many which 

 go to compose those complex wholes. But when 

 we proceeded to analyze this seemingly element- 

 ary factor in the whole scene which lay before 

 us from Appuldurcombe, we saw that it is really 

 itself made up of a thousand different threads 

 of feeling, sensuous, intellectual, and emotional. 

 While most theorists are ready to account for 

 every manifestation of beauty by a single uniform 

 principle, actual analysis revealed to us the fact 

 that even the most apparently uncompounded per- 

 ception depended for its pleasurable effect upon 

 a whole mass of complicated causes. Some of 

 these factors are immediate and universal, appeal- 

 ing to the senses of child and savage and culti- 

 vated man alike; others are mediate and special, 

 being entirely relative to the knowledge and emo- 

 tional constitution of the individual percipient. 

 We will sum them up briefly under the different 

 categories into which they would fall in a sys- 

 tematic scheme of our aesthetic nature. 



Sensuously, the obelisk has tactual smoothness 

 and visual gloss ; a simple, graceful, and easily- 

 apprehended form, and sometimes delicate or 

 variegated coloring, as well as crystalline texture. 

 Ill special cases it may also afford harmonious re- 

 lief from neighboring tints, and may stand out 

 with pleasing boldness against a monotonous ho- 

 rizon. 



Emotionally, the obelisk appeals to the affec- 

 tion of the sublime, both directly, by its massive 

 size and weight, and indirectly, by its suggestion 

 of remote antiquity and despotic power. It 

 arouses the sympathetic admiration of skill and 

 honest workmanship, and in special cases it re- 



