Natural expression of melancholy and grandeur

1490. The general or natural expression of melancholy and grandeur remains to be accounted for. For this purpose, let the building be the ruins of an ancient castle, whose lofty quadrangular form may be readily imagined from the walls we mentioned as composing a part of the scenery. The character of grandeur, then, is not in this instance communicated to the picture by the picturesque effect of the walls, which have no variety of form, light, or shade in themselves, but by the mental associations to which they give rise in a cultivated mind.