that only by the art of your own hand, and fidelity of
sight which it develops, you can obtain true perception of these
invincible and inimitable arts of the earth herself; while the
comparatively slight effort necessary to obtain so much skill as may
serviceably draw mountains in distant effect will be instantly rewarded
by what is almost equivalent to a new sense of the conditions of their
structure.

110. And, because it is well at once to know some direction in which our
work may be definite, let me suggest to those of you who may intend
passing their vacation in Switzerland, and who care about mountains,
that if they will first qualify themselves to take angles of position
and elevation with correctness, and to draw outlines with approximate
fidelity, there are a series of problems of the highest interest to be
worked out on the southern edge of the Swiss plain, in the study of the
relations of its molasse beds to the rocks which are characteristically
developed in the chain of the Stockhorn, Beatenberg, Pilate, Mythen
above Schwytz, and High Sentis of Appenzell, the pursuit of which may
lead them into many pleasant, as well as creditably dangerous, walks,
and curious discoveries; and will be good for the discipline of their
fingers in the pencilling of crag form.

111. I wish I could ask you to draw, instead of the Alps, the crests of
Parnassus and Olympus, and the ravines of Delphi and of Tempe. I have
not loved the arts of Greece as others have; yet I love them, and her,
so much, that it is to me simply a standing marvel how scholars can
endure for all these centuries, during which their chief education has
been in the language and policy of Greece, to have only the names of her
hills and rivers upon their lips, and never one line of conception of
them in their mind's sight. Which of us knows what the valley of Sparta
is like, or the great mountain vase of Arcadia? which of us, except in
mere airy syllabling of names, knows aught of "sandy Ladon's lilied
banks, or old Lycaeus, or Cyllene hoar"? "You cannot travel in
Greece?"--I know it; nor in Magna Graecia. But, gentlemen of England, you
had better find out why you cannot, and put an end to that horror of
European shame, before you hope to learn Greek art.

112. I scarcely know whether to place among the things useful to art,
or to science, the systematic record, by drawing, of phenomena of the
sky. But I am quite sure that your work cannot in any direc