The first is, that a mountain scene, as we saw in the last
paper, bears no traces of decay, since it never possessed any of life.
The desolation of the sterile peaks, never having been interrupted, is
altogether free from the melancholy which is consequent on the passing
away of interruption. They stood up in the time of Italy's glory, into
the voiceless air, while all the life and light which she remembers now
was working and moving at their feet, an animated cloud, which they did
not feel, and do not miss. That region of life never reached up their
flanks, and has left them no memorials of its being; they have no
associations, no monuments, no memories; we look on them as we would on
other hills; things of abstract and natural magnificence, which the
presence of man could not increase, nor his departure sadden. They are,
in consequence, destitute of all that renders the name of Ausonia
thrilling, or her champaigns beautiful, beyond the mere splendor of
climate; and even that splendor is unshared by the mountain; its cold
atmosphere being undistinguished by any of that rich, purple, ethereal
transparency which gives the air of the plains its _depth of
feeling_,--we can find no better expression.
Secondly. In all hill scenery, though there is increase of size, there
is want of distance.
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