XV 

 ON THE MOUNTAINS 



IN passing from glen to glen, a break helps one 

 to assimilate experiences which follow so hard 

 upon. A pause between each spell of climbing 

 gives impressions time to print, as well as sort 

 themselves out. Like the scene it represents, a 

 mental picture needs space. If blurred and 

 crowded, it is rather worse than none. Objects 

 must stand a certain distance apart. Haste, so far 

 from being any real gain, finds one at the end of 

 his rambles as well informed as if he had been on 

 a conventional tour over the Continent. 



A day or two spent in training the eye to read 

 the mountain-sides from a distance, to tell what 

 wild plant yields that particular hue, to pick out 

 the clump of sphagnum touched with the sundew, 

 to trace the long-leaved cranberry amid the oval- 

 leaved cowberry and blaeberry, is time-saving in 



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