220 



NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



From the 

 high Alps. 



Mississippi bluffs, or the Leopoldsberg near 

 Vienna, the great expanse of territory to be 

 seen in the vista looks " mappy," and I cannot 

 imagine anything more dreary than to live upon 

 such heights, straining one's eyes and imagina- 

 tion over the lines of a river-valley, with its 

 dotted farms, towns, lakes, and woodlands. 



Doubtless, I am lacking in appreciation just 

 here, and yet I must add further that the 

 " view" from the high Alps is even more de- 

 pressing and unsatisfactory to me. The helter- 

 skelter confusion of snow-fields,, great glaciers, 

 gray needles of rock, and flashing blinding light 

 may be sublime in the sense that chaos is 

 sometimes sublime, but it is hardly beautiful. 

 If one looks about him the masses are too big 

 for comprehension, the eyes grow weary looking 

 at them, and finally the imagination the 

 power to conceive the scene breaks down. If 

 one looks over into the valley it is the world 

 seen through the small end of the opera-glass 

 again the scale is too petty, too map-like. In 

 fact, the "view" from the mountain is some- 

 thing more than the unusual produced by dis- 

 tance ; it is in measure a positive distortion so 

 far as our eyes are concerned something quite 

 out of the normal. 



