tual contrast existing between the angular and bony
sanctities of the one latitude, and the drooping graces and pensive
pieties of the other, he would no longer attribute to the ruggedness, or
miasma, of the mountains the origin of a feeling which showed itself so
strongly in the comfortable streets of Antwerp and Nuremberg, and in the
unweakened and active intellects of Van Eyck and Albert Durer.

Conditions which produce the Mountain gloom.

Sec. 23. As I think over these various difficulties, the following
conclusions seem to me deducible from the data I at present possess. I
am in no wise confident of their accuracy, but they may assist the
reader in pursuing the inquiry farther.

General power of intellect.

I. It seems to me, first, that a fair degree of intellect and
imagination is necessary before this kind of disease is possible. It
does not seize on merely stupid peasantries, but on those which belong
to intellectual races, and in whom the faculties of imagination and the
sensibilities of heart were originally strong and tender. In flat land,
with fresh air, the peasantry may be almost mindless, but not infected
with this gloom.

Romanism.

II. In the second place, I think it is closely connected with the
Romanist religion, and that for several causes.

A. The habitual use of bad art (ill-made dolls and bad pictures), in the
services of religion, naturally blunts the delicacy of the senses, by
requiring reverence to be paid to ugliness, and familiarizing the eye to
it in moments of strong and pure feeling; I do not think we can overrate
the probable evil results of this enforced discordance between the sight
and imagination.

B. The habitually dwelling on the penances, tortures, and martyrdoms of
the Saints, as subjects of admiration and sympathy, together with much
meditation on Purgatorial suffering; rendered almost impossible to
Protestants by the greater fearfulness of such reflections, when the
punishment is supposed eternal.

C. Idleness, and neglect of the proper duties of daily life, during the
large number of holidays in the year, together with want of proper
cleanliness, induced by the idea that comfort and happy purity are less
pleasing to God than discomfort and self-degradation. This insolence
induces much despondency, a larger measure of real misery than is
necessary under the given circumstances of life, and many forms of crime
and disease besides.

D. Superstitious indi