Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/99

Rh Lake of Como have generally the character there described, with a little more cheerfulness, and a little less elevation, but aided by great variety of form. They are not quite so rich in vegetation as the plains: both because the soil is scanty, there being, of course, no decomposition going on among the rocks of black marble which form the greater part of the shore; and because the mountains rise steeply from the water, leaving only a narrow zone at 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 splendour of climate; and even that splendour 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. We are not speaking of views from summits, but of the average aspect of valleys. Suppose the mountains be 10,000 ft. high, their summit will not be more than six miles distant in a direct line; and there is a general sense of confinement, induced by their wall-like boundaries, which is painful, contrasted with the wide expatiation of spirit induced by a distant view over plains. In ordinary countries, however, where the plain is an uninteresting mass of cultivation, the sublimity of distance is not to be compared to that of