CHARM OF THE DOWNS 31 



eagle by taking it three or four miles up in a balloon 

 and throwing it out of the car. 



What we do get by ascending to greater heights, 

 to the limits of our endurance, is the mountain 

 scenery, the new aspects of nature, which have an 

 aesthetic value. This is the same kind of pleasure 

 which we experience in walking or riding through a 

 picturesque country; but the aesthetic pleasure of the 

 mountain may actually seem more, or keener, on 

 account of the greater novelty — the unlikeness of 

 the scene to the more or less familiar aspects of 

 nature on the level earth. For we live on the earth 

 and pay but brief visits to mountain summits. 



