[24]
I know that this is in great part idiosyncrasy; and that I must not
trust to my own feelings, in this respect, as representative of the
modern landscape instinct: yet I know it is not idiosyncrasy, in so
far as there may be proved to be indeed an increase of the absolute
beauty of all scenery in exact proportion to its mountainous
character, providing that character be _healthily_ mountainous. I do
not mean to take the Col de Bonhomme as representative of hills, any
more than I would take Romney Marsh as representative of plains; but
putting Leicestershire or Staffordshire fairly beside Westmoreland,
and Lombardy or Champagne fairly beside the Pays de Vaud or the Canton
Berne, I find the increase in the calculable sum of elements of beauty
to be steadily in proportion to the increase of mountainous character;
and that the best image which the world can give of Paradise is in the
slope of the meadows, orchards, and corn-fields on the sides of a
great Alp, with its purple rocks and eternal snows above; this
excellence not being in any wise a matter referable to feeling, or
individual preferences, but demonstrable by calm enumeration of the
number of lovely colours on the rocks, the varied grouping of the
trees, and quantity of noble incidents in stream, crag, or cloud,
presented to the eye at any given moment.
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