Finally, to this supremacy in foliage we have to add the still less
questionable supremacy in clouds. There is no effect of sky possible
in the lowlands which may not in equal perfection be seen among the
hills; but there are effects by tens of thousands, for ever invisible
and inconceivable to the inhabitant of the plains, manifested among
the hills in the course of one day. The mere power of familiarity with
the clouds, of walking with them and above them, alters and renders
clear our whole conception of the baseless architecture of the sky;
and for the beauty of it, there is more in a single wreath of early
cloud, pacing its way up an avenue of pines, or pausing among the
points of their fringes, than in all the white heaps that fill the
arched sky of the plains from one horizon to the other. And of the
nobler cloud manifestations,--the breaking of their troublous seas
against the crags, their black spray sparkling with lightning; or the
going forth of the morning[27] along their pavements of moving marble,
level-laid between dome and dome of snow;--of these things there can
be as little imagination or understanding in an inhabitant of the
plains as of the scenery of another planet than his own.
And, observe, all these superiorities are matters plainly measurable
and calculable, not in any wise to be referred to estimate of
_sensation_.
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