culpture and painted legend. It is
impossible to examine, in their connected system, the features of even
the most ordinary mountain scenery, without concluding that it has
been prepared in order to unite as far as possible, and in the closest
compass, every means of delighting and sanctifying the heart of man:
"as far as _possible_,"--that is, as far as is consistent with the
fulfilment of the sentence of condemnation on the whole earth. Death
must be upon the hills; and the cruelty of the tempests smite them,
and the briar and thorn spring up upon them; but they so smite as to
bring their rocks into the fairest forms, and so spring as to make the
very desert blossom as the rose. Even among our own hills of Scotland
and Cumberland, though often too barren to be perfectly beautiful, and
always too low to be perfectly sublime, it is strange how many deep
sources of delight are gathered into the compass of their glens and
vales; and how, down to the most secret cluster of their far-away
flowers, and the idlest leap of their straying streamlets, the whole
heart of Nature seems thirsting to give, and still to give, shedding
forth her everlasting beneficence with a profusion so patient, so
passionate, that our utmost observance and thankfulness are but, at
last, neglects of her nobleness, and apathy to her love. But among the
true mountains of the greater orders, the Divine purpose of appeal at
once to all the faculties of the human spirit becomes still more
manifest. Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt, in some degree, the
richness of the valleys at their feet; the grey downs of southern
England and treeless coteaux of central France, and grey swells of
Scottish moor, whatever peculiar charm they may possess in themselves,
are at least destitute of those which belong to the woods and fields
of the lowlands. But the great mountains _lift_ the lowlands on _their
sides_. Let the reader imagine first the appearance of the most varied
plain of some richly cultivated country; let him imagine it dark with
graceful woods, and soft with deepest pastures; let him fill the space
of it, to the utmost horizon, with innumerable and changeful incidents
of scenery and life; leading pleasant streamlets through its meadows,
strewing clusters of cottages beside their banks, tracing sweet
footpaths through its avenues, and animating its fields with happy
flocks, and slow wandering spots of cattle; and when he has wearied
himself with endless im