374 GRANDEUR AND SUBLIMITY. 



that of grandeur. A discernment of their disposition and 

 properties is necessary to enable us to feel the beauty of 

 certain harmonic figures ; but the feeling of grandeur is 

 more indefinite. A few meteors, or falling stars, are con- 

 fessedly beautiful ; let them be multiplied so as to cover 

 all the visible heavens, and our sensations would be 

 raised to the point of grandeur. But if at the same time 

 we believed that this meteoric shower portended an im- 

 mediate national calamity, the pathos mingled with the 

 phenomenon by our superstitious fear would turn our 

 emotion of grandeur into that of sublimity. I know it 

 is not usual to make any considerable distinction between 

 these two sentiments ; but it seems to me perfectly com- 

 patible with the general usage of the two words to dis- 

 tinguish them. A certain excess of those qualities that 

 produce a sense of physical beauty, as an infinite multi- 

 plication of beautiful lights, causes the emotion of gran- 

 deur. On the other hand, a dim discernment or sensation 

 of the awful or the terrible causes the emotion of sub- 

 limity. "We may apply the same remarks to sounds. A 

 loud crash of harmonious and musical sounds produces a 

 sense of grandeur ; an equally loud combination of dis- 

 cordant sounds, so far distant as not to excite terror, 

 awakens a sense of sublimity. Grandeur is purely exhil- 

 arating; sublimity, though certainly an agreeable senti- 

 ment, is always more or less depressing. 



Sounds are more frequently a cause of the sublime than 

 sights, because the ear is a more emotional organ than the 

 eye. Music is therefore more easily rendered sublime 

 than painting. In a cathedral, while the understanding 

 is informed by the painted scenes, the passions are ex- 

 cited by musical strains from the choir ; and the solemn 

 grandeur of the interior becomes completely effective 

 only when aided by the chant or the anthem. Dark- 

 ness, solitude, and silence are aids to the sublime, and 



