task of all analysis, and leave us only that of examining how this
black aqua Tophana mingles with other conditions of mind.

Sec. 22. For I have led the reader over this dark ground, because it was
essential to our determination of the influence of mountains that we
should get what data we could as to the extent in other districts, and
derivation from other causes, of the horror which at first we might have
been led to connect too arbitrarily with hill scenery. And I wish that
my knowledge permitted me to trace it over wider ground, for the
observations hitherto stated leave the question still one of great
difficulty. It might appear to a traveller crossing and recrossing the
Alps between Switzerland and Italy, that the main strength of the evil
lay on the south of the chain, and was attributable to the peculiar
circumstances and character of the Italian nation at this period. But as
he examined the matter farther he would note that in the districts of
Italy generally supposed to be _healthy_, the evidence of it was less,
and that it seemed to gain ground in places exposed to malaria,
centralizing itself in the Val d'Aosta. He would then, perhaps, think it
inconsistent with justice to lay the blame on the mountains, and
transfer his accusation to the marshes, yet would be compelled to admit
that the evil manifested itself most where these marshes were surrounded
by hills. He would next, probably, suppose it produced by the united
effect of hardships, solitude, and unhealthy air; and be disposed to
find fault with the mountains, at least so far as they required painful
climbing and laborious agriculture;--but would again be thrown into
doubt by remembering that one main branch of the feeling,--the love of
ugliness, seemed to belong in a peculiar manner to Northern Germany. If
at all familiar with the art of the North and South, he would perceive
that the _endurance_ of ugliness, which in Italy resulted from languor
or depression (while the mind yet retained some apprehension of the
difference between fairness and deformity, as above noted in Sec. 12), was
not to be confounded with that absence of perception of the Beautiful,
which introduced a general hard-featuredness of figure into all German
and Flemish early art, even when Germany and Flanders were in their
brightest national health and power. And as he followed out in detail
the comparison of all the purest ideals north and south of the Alps, and
perceived the perpe