upon an adaptation of the object to the senses, attention, and synthetic
functions of the mind. The long, rambling novel of the eighteenth
century is a more faithful image of the fullness and diversity of life,
but it answers ill to the limited sweep of the mind, its proneness to
fatigue, and its craving for wholeness of view.

But even all the reasons so far invoked--the necessity for significance,
the interest in unity, the demand for perspicuity--do not, I think,
suffice to explain the structure of works of art. For structure has,
oftentimes, a direct emotional appeal, which has not yet been taken
into account, and which is a leading motive for its presence. Consider,
for example, symmetry. A symmetrical disposition of parts is indeed
favorable to perspicuity; for it is easier to find on either side what
we have already found on the other, the sight of one side preparing
us for the sight of the other; and such an arrangement is flattering
to our craving for unity, for we rejoice seeing the same pattern
expressed in the two parts; yet the experience of symmetry is richer
still: it includes an agreeable feeling of balance, steadfastness,
stability. This is most evident in the case of visual objects, like
a Greek vase, where there is a plain division between right and left
similar halves; but it is also felt in music when there is a balance
of themes in the earlier and later parts of a composition, and in
literature in the well-balanced sentence, paragraph, or poem. To cite
the very simplest example, if I read, "on the one hand ... on the other
hand," I have a feeling of balanced tensions precisely analogous to
what I experience when I look at a vase. Structure is not a purely
intellectual or perceptive affair; it is also motor and organic, and
that means emotional. It is felt with the body as well as understood
by the mind. I have used the case of symmetry to bring out this truth,
but I might have used other types of unification, each of which has