If, without others to counteract and restrain them, the parts
converge, the eye, being forced to the centre, becomes stationary; in
like manner, if all diverge, it is forced to fly off in tangents:
as if the great laws of Attraction and Repulsion were here also
essential, and illustrated in miniature. If we add to these Breadth, I
believe we shall have enumerated all the leading phenomena of
Harmony, which experience has enabled us to establish as rules. By
_breadth_ is meant such a massing of the quantities, whether
by color, light, or shadow, as shall enable the eye to pass without
obstruction, and by easy transitions, from one to another, so that it
shall appear to take in the whole at a glance. This may be likened to
both the exordium and peroration of a discourse, including as well
the last as the first general idea. It is, in other words, a simple,
connected, and concise exposition and summary of what the artist
intends.

We have thus endeavoured to arrange and to give a logical permanency
to the several principles of Composition. It is not to be supposed,
however, that in these we have every principle that might be named;
but they are all, as we conceive, that are of universal application.
Of other minor, or rather personal ones, since they pertain to the
individual, the number can only be limited by the variety of the
human intellect, to which these may be considered as so many simple
elementary guides; not to create genius, but to enable it to
understand itself, and by a distinct knowledge of its own operations
to correct its mistakes,--in a word, to establish the landmarks
between the flats of commonplace and the barrens of extravagance. And,
though the personal or individual principles referred to may not with
propriety be cited as examples in a general treatise like the present,
they are not only not to be overlooked, but are to be regarded by the