that in describing the appearance of the
Deity, amidst that profusion of magnificent images, which the grandeur
of his subject provokes him to pour out upon every side, he is far from
forgetting the obscurity which surrounds the most incomprehensible of
all beings, but

"With majesty of _darkness_ round
Circles his throne."

And what is no less remarkable, our author had the secret of preserving
this idea, even when he seemed to depart the farthest from it, when he
describes the light and glory which flows from the Divine presence; a
light which by its very excess is converted into a species of
darkness:--

"_Dark_ with excessive _light_ thy skirts appear."

Here is an idea not only poetical in a high degree, but strictly and
philosophically just. Extreme light, by overcoming the organs of sight,
obliterates all objects, so as in its effect exactly to resemble
darkness. After looking for some time at the sun, two black spots, the
impression which it leaves, seem to dance before our eyes. Thus are two
ideas as opposite as can be imagined reconciled in the extremes of both;
and both, in spite of their opposite nature, brought to concur in
producing the sublime. And this is not the only instance wherein the
opposite extremes operate equally in favor of the sublime, which in all
things abhors mediocrity.

SECTION XV.

LIGHT IN BUILDING.

As the management of light is a matter of importance in architecture, it
is worth inquiring, how far this remark is applicable to building. I
think, then, that all edifices calculated to produce an idea of the
sublime, ought rather to be dark and gloomy, and this for two reasons;
the first is, that darkness itself on other occasions is known by
experience to have a greater effect on the passions than light. The
second is, that to make an object very striking, we should make it as
different as possible from the objects with which we have been
immediately conversant; when therefore you enter a building, you cannot
pass into a greater light than you had in the open air; to go into one
some few degrees less luminous, can make only a trifling change; but to
make the transition thoroughly striking, you ought to pass from the
greatest light, to as much darkness as is consistent with the uses of
architecture. At night the contrary rule will hold, but for the very
same reason; and the more highly a room is then illuminated, the grander
will the passion be.

SECTION X