phere; and the effect, consequently, vastness of
space, with intensity of light and crystalline transparency of air.

Sec. 16. Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by very
sharp outline.

These truths are invariably given in every one of Turner's distances,
that is to say, we have always in them two principal facts forced on our
notice; transparency, or filminess of mass, and excessive sharpness of
edge. And I wish particularly to insist upon this sharpness of edge,
because it is not a casual or changeful habit of nature; it is the
unfailing characteristic of all very great distances. It is quite a
mistake to suppose that slurred or melting lines are characteristic of
distant _large_ objects; they may be so, as before observed, (Sec. II.
Chap. IV. Sec. 4,) when the focus of the eye is not adapted to them; but,
when the eye is really directed to the distance, melting lines are
characteristic only of thick mist and vapor between us and the object,
not of the removal of the object. If a thing has character upon its
outline, as a tree for instance, or a mossy stone, the farther it is
removed from us, the sharper the outline of the whole mass will become,
though in doing so, the particular details which make up the character
will become confused in the manner described in the same chapter. A tree
fifty yards from us, taken as a mass, has a soft outline, because the
leaves and interstices have some effect on the eye. But put it ten miles
off against the sky, and its outline will be so sharp that you cannot
tell it from a rock. There are three trees on the Mont Saleve, about
five miles from Geneva, which from the city, as they stand on the ridge
of the hill, are seen defined against the sky. The keenest eye in the
world could not tell them from stones. So in a mountain five or six
miles off, bushes, and heather, and roughnesses of knotty ground and
rock, have still some effect on the eye, and by becoming confused and
mingled as before described, soften the outline. But let the mountain be
thirty miles off, and its edge will be as sharp as a knife. Let it, as
in the case of the Alps, be seventy or eighty miles off, and though it
has become so faint that the morning mist is not so transparent, its
outline will be beyond all imitation for excessive sharpness. Thus,
then, the character of extreme distance is always excessive keenness of
edge. If you soften your outline, you either put mist between you a