MOUNTAINS AND HILLS 



221 



By that I mean that our usual way of seeing 

 things is violently reversed. When we stand in 

 the valleys or lowlands we instinctively look 

 straight ahead or up, and in doing so all opaque 

 bodies are seen by their reliefs of shadows. We 

 see these shadows and gain ideas of form from 

 them, the eye finding rest in their dark depths 

 by contrast with the occasional sharp breaks of 

 high light. Looking down from a height in- 

 volves a wholesale destruction of shadows, for 

 we do not see them at all, and there is a conse- 

 quent distortion of form. Every object is seen 

 in its high light ; not one is seen in its shad- 

 owed portion. More than that, the look down- 

 ward means a monotony of light and a monotony 

 of color. The direct sunlight is over all and is 

 reflected back to us from every surface. Local 

 color is bleached and changed by this, just as 

 the color of a mountain-lake is lost in sky re- 

 flection. Finally, when we add to these distor- 

 tions of the usual appearance the gray and hazy 

 effect produced by seeing the world through a 

 dense stratum of blue air, we have, I think, 

 sufficient reason for saying that the view from 

 mountain-heights, looking down, is not by any 

 means the best view. 



And, strangely enough, people on mountain- 



