It is with mountains somewhat as it is with 

 people — there must be perspedtive if they are to 

 appear all serene and beautiful. In the distant 

 chain the details are lost, and we receive a single 

 distindt impression of serenity, as though they 

 stood there a type of the fixed and eternal. But 

 in among them there are everywhere signs of con- 

 vulsion, everywhere evidence of change and decay. 

 It is in the distance, then, that the poet loves 

 them best, as a beautiful vision, which lures and 

 beckons him. It is to these he lifts his eyes, from 

 these he receives his inspiration, for they are 

 ethereal and opalescent and play upon his fancy, 

 provoking him to subtle thoughts of the Ideal, 

 rose-colored as themselves. 



They who do not live where they can see the 

 mountains miss somewhat in their lives, as do 

 they who never hear the sea. It would seem as 

 though one or the other were essential to a normal 

 human environment, providing that changeful 

 beauty which forever stimulates the imagination. 

 We necessarily lift up our eyes to the mountains 

 with some corresponding elevation of thought. 

 Again, from those desolate heaps of granite we 

 receive the suggestion of something immutable 



175 



