ment of these facts has hitherto been made, nor any
evidence given even of their observation, except by the most inferior
painters.[55]

Sec. 21. Average paintings of Switzerland. Its real spirit has scarcely yet
been caught.

Various works in green and white appear from time to time on the walls
of the Academy, _like_ the Alps indeed, but so frightfully like, that we
shudder and sicken at the sight of them, as we do when our best friend
shows us into his dining-room, to see a portrait of himself, which
"everybody thinks very like." We should be glad to see fewer of these,
for Switzerland is quite beyond the power of any but first-rate men, and
is exceedingly bad practice for a rising artist; but, let us express a
hope that Alpine scenery will not continue to be neglected as it has
been, by those who alone are capable of treating it. We love Italy, but
we have had rather a surfeit of it lately;--too many peaked caps and
flat-headed pines. We should be very grateful to Harding and Stanfield
if they would refresh us a little among the snow, and give us, what we
believe them to be capable of giving us, a faithful expression of Alpine
ideal. We are well aware of the pain inflicted on an artist's mind by
the preponderance of black, and white, and green, over more available
colors; but there is nevertheless in generic Alpine scenery, a fountain
of feeling yet unopened--a chord of harmony yet untouched by art. It
will be struck by the first man who can separate what is national, in
Switzerland, from what is ideal. We do not want chalets and three-legged
stools, cow-bells and buttermilk. We want the pure and holy hills,
treated as a link between heaven and earth.

FOOTNOTES

[53] One of the most genuine Claudes I know.

[54] Compare Part III. Sect. I. Chap. 9, Sec. 5.

[55] I hear of some study of Alpine scenery among the professors at
Geneva; but all foreign landscape that I have ever met with has been
so utterly ignorant that I hope for nothing except from our own
painters.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE INFERIOR MOUNTAINS.

Sec. 1. The inferior mountains are distinguished from the central by being
divided into beds.

We have next to investigate the character of those intermediate masses
which constitute the greater part of all hill scenery, forming the
outworks of the high ranges, and being almost the sole constituents