rks_ of lovely pasture land enclosed among them, and
avenue after avenue of chestnuts, walnuts, and pines bending round their
bases; while in the deeper dingles, unseen in the drawing, nestle
populous villages, literally bound down to the rock by enormous trunks
of vine, which, first trained lightly over the loose stone roofs, have
in process of years cast their fruitful net over the whole village, and
fastened it to the ground under their purple weight and wayward coils,
as securely as ever human heart was fastened to earth by the net of the
Flatterer.

Sec. 39. And it is this very richness of incident and detail which renders
Switzerland so little attractive in its subjects to the ordinary artist.
Observe, this study of mine in Plate +46+ does not profess to be a
_picture_ at all. It is a mere sketch or catalogue of all that there is
on the mountain side, faithfully written out, but no more than should be
put down by any conscientious painter for mere guidance, before he
begins his work, properly so called; and in finishing such a subject no
trickery nor shorthand is of any avail whatsoever; there are a certain
number of trees to be drawn; and drawn they must be, or the place will
not bear its proper character. They are not misty wreaths of soft wood
suggestible by a sweep or two of the brush; but arranged and lovely
clusters of trees, clear in the mountain sunlight, each specially
grouped and as little admitting any carelessness of treatment, though
five miles distant, as if they were within a few yards of us; the whole
meaning and power of the scene being involved in that one fact of
quantity. It is not large merely by multitudes of tons of rock,--the
number of tons is not measurable; it is not large by elevation of angle
on the horizon,--a house-roof near us rises higher; it is not large by
faintness of aerial perspective,--in a clear day it often looks as if we
could touch the summit with the hand. But it is large by this one
unescapable fact that, from the summit to the base of it, there are of
timber trees so many countable thousands. The scene differs from
subjects not Swiss by including hundreds of other scenes within itself,
and is mighty, not by scale, but by aggregation.

Sec. 40. And this is more especially and humiliatingly true of pine forest.
Nearly all other kinds of wood may be reduced, over large spaces, to
undetailed masses; but there is nothing but patience for pines; and this
has been one of the