262 MOUNTAINS. 



scapes, therefore, except within very narrow limits, ought 

 never to be highly dressed or decorated. We should 

 leave all such ornamentation to Nature, who, while she 

 provides endless scenes of beauty for those who seek 

 them, never clogs our sight by their profusion. Though 

 the influence of moderately pleasant natural scenery is 

 healthful and never tiresome, I can imagine nothing 

 so melancholy and depressing as a country universally 

 dressed in the highest style of English landscape art. 



My object in these essays is to present the reader with 

 pictures of those scenes which are common, and that 

 fail to attract attention only because the generality of 

 men can see nothing admirable in Nature except her 

 monstrosities. I am not obliged to visit Mount Wash- 

 ington or the Falls of Niagara to experience the effect 

 of that sublimity which I can equally perceive in the 

 fading fires of the heavens at sunset, or in their starry 

 glow by night. The common scenes of Nature are capa- 

 ble of affording the most intense delight to those who have 

 accustomed their minds to the study of all her aspects. 

 We may sail round the globe in quest of scenes of gran- 

 deur and beauty ; but we shall seek in vain for anything 

 more beautiful than the rainbow, or more sublime than 

 the sun emerging, as it were, from the ocean at sunrise, 

 enshrouded in the dappled hues of morning. 



