MOUNTAINS, 259 



templating a mountain from below ; but in general a 

 prisoned sensation must be felt in its valleys, from the 

 conscious restraint upon our freedom. Here we have no 

 breadth of prospect, as we should have from an island, 

 and feel more as if we were confined by walls, though 

 we might emerge from it more easily than we could 

 escape from the island. 



The moral influence of a permanent home in a moun- 

 tain valley is highly favorable to cheerfulness, by in- 

 creasing our susceptibility to be agreeably affected by 

 the scenes that are spread out above and beyond us, 

 which can be seen only by leaving the valley. Our egress 

 from this retreat is always exhilarating and hopeful, be- 

 cause our journey is upward, and every step widens the 

 circumference of our horizon. But if our home is on an 

 elevated site on the mountain, that affords us an appar- 

 ently boundless prospect, its influence must be depressing, 

 because we cannot enlarge our prospect by leaving our 

 situation. Our journey into the world is downward. 

 Every step narrows our landscape, brings objects that 

 were grand and beautiful in the distance so near to us as 

 to be tame and uninteresting. I can believe, therefore, 

 that, if a man were subject to melancholy, he would flnd 

 his cure more certainly by making his home in a valley 

 than upon a mountain. 



For a permanent residence I should prefer a plain, 

 with a view of mountains afar off, to a vaUey among 

 them, or to a mountain. The exhilaration produced by a 

 wide prospect and great altitude is a tone of the mind 

 that cannot be long sustained, and we should lose our 

 susceptibility to be afiected by it if it were constantly 

 before our sight. But a view of distant mountains is 

 not exhilarating. It acts quietly upon the imagination, 

 when the mind is in a reflective mood ; it is never glar- 

 ing, and affords no unnatural stimulus. The same may 



