VI.

COLOR CONSIDERED AS PRODUCTIVE OF THE SUBLIME.

Among colors, such as are soft or cheerful (except perhaps a strong red,
which is cheerful) are unfit to produce grand images. An immense
mountain covered with a shining green turf, is nothing, in this respect,
to one dark and gloomy; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue; and
night more sublime and solemn than day. Therefore in historical
painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect: and in
buildings, when the highest degree of the sublime is intended, the
materials and ornaments ought neither to be white, nor green, nor
yellow, nor blue, nor of a pale red, nor violet, nor spotted, but of
sad and fuscous colors, as black, or brown, or deep purple, and the
like. Much of gilding, mosaics, painting, or statues, contribute but
little to the sublime. This rule need not be put in practice, except
where an uniform degree of the most striking sublimity is to be
produced, and that in every particular; for it ought to be observed,
that this melancholy kind of greatness, though it be certainly the
highest, ought not to be studied in all sorts of edifices, where yet
grandeur must be studied; in such cases the sublimity must be drawn from
the other sources; with a strict caution however against anything light
and riant; as nothing so effectually deadens the whole taste of the
sublime.

SECTION XVII.

SOUND AND LOUDNESS.

The eye is not the only organ of sensation by which a sublime passion
may be produced. Sounds have a great power in these as in most other
passions. I do not mean words, because words do not affect simply by
their sounds, but by means altogether different. Excessive loudness
alone is sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to
fill it with terror. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms,
thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful sensation in the mind,
though we can observe no nicety or artifice in those sorts of music. The
shouting of multitudes has a similar effect; and by the sole strength of
the sound, so amazes and confounds the imagination, that, in this
staggering and hurry of the mind, the best established tempers can
scarcely forbear being borne down, and joining in the common cry, and
common resolution of the crowd.

SECTION XVIII.

SUDDENNESS.

A sudden beginning, or sudden cessation of sound of any considerable
force, has the same power. The attention is roused by this; and the
faculti