= MOUNTAINS 207 
green of the grass, which I will suppose (and 
this is an unnecessary concession to the low- 
lands) entirely fresh and bright; the green of 
trees; and certain elements of purple, far 
more rich and beautiful than we generally 
should think, in their bark and shadows (bare 
hedges and thickets, or tops of trees, in sub- 
dued afternoon sunshine, are nearly perfect 
purple and of an exquisite tone), as well as in 
ploughed fields, and dark ground in general. 
But among mountains, in addition to all this, 
large unbroken spaces of pure violet and 
purple are introduced in their distances ; and 
even near, by films of cloud passing over the 
darkness of ravines or forests, blues are pro- 
duced of the most subtle tenderness; these 
azures and purples passing into rose colour of 
otherwise wholly unattainable delicacy among 
the upper summits, the blue of the sky being 
at the same time purer and deeper than in the 
plains. Nay, in some sense, a person who- 
has never seen the rose colour of the rays of 
dawn crossing a blue mountain twelve or 
fifteen miles away can hardly be said to know 
what tenderness in colour means at all; bright 
