86 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
Clouds in 
landscape. 
Sky lines in 
landscape. 
We realize quickly enough how important to 
our enjoyment of landscape are the sky and the 
white clouds as soon as they are cut off from 
our view by the drawn veil of a rainy day. The 
variety of color in the sky and of movement and 
form in the cloud, the feeling of space, dis- 
tance, loftiness in them both, are gone; and 
with them perhaps the most effective features 
of all landseape. Anything that obscures or 
shuts out sky-space, with its interminable depths 
of blue and its bright clouds, mars one of nat- 
ure’s greatest beauties. Even a horizon-line so 
high as to narrow the sweep is objectionable ; 
and hence the valleys of the Alps, though grand 
enough in view of mountain bulk and snowy 
peak, are the least livable places in Europe. 
The great palisade of rock breaks the reach of 
the sky and we lose directly in color, ight, and 
atmospheric perspective. On the contrary, a 
flat, low-lying land, though perhaps the last to 
be loved by humanity, is in the end the most 
livable of all. The prairies of North America, 
the plains of Lombardy, the flat lands of eastern 
England, are supreme in the feeling of space 
in sky and of distance in cloud. Something of 
the great charm of Venice lies in her flat lagoons 
and her great, uplifted sky; and to those who 
