e them
out of their proper territory.]

197. Its next character is mystery. It is a country peculiarly
distinguished by its possessing features of great sublimity in the
distance, without giving any hint in the foreground of their actual
nature. A range of mountain, seen from a mountain peak, may have
sublimity, but not the mystery with which it is invested, when seen
rising over the farthest surge of misty blue, where everything near is
soft and smiling, totally separated in nature from the consolidated
clouds of the horizon. The picturesque blue country is sure, from the
nature of the ground, to present some distance of this kind, so as never
to be without a high and ethereal mystery.

198. The third and last distinctive attribute is sensuality. This is a
startling word, and requires some explanation. In the first place, every
line is voluptuous, floating, and wavy in its form; deep, rich, and
exquisitely soft in its color; drowsy in its effect; like slow wild
music; letting the eye repose on it, as on a wreath of cloud, without
one feature of harshness to hurt, or of contrast to awaken. In the
second place, the cultivation, which, in the simple blue country, has
the forced formality of growth which evidently is to supply the
necessities of man, here seems to leap into the spontaneous luxuriance
of life, which is fitted to minister to his pleasures. The surface of
the earth exults with animation, especially tending to the gratification
of the senses; and, without the artificialness which reminds man of the
necessity of his own labor, without the opposing influences which call
for his resistance, without the vast energies that remind him of his
impotence, without the sublimity that can call his noblest thoughts into
action, yet, with every perfection that can tempt him to indolence of
enjoyment, and with such abundant bestowal of natural gifts, as might
seem to prevent that indolence from being its own punishment, the earth
appears to have become a garden of delight, wherein the sweep of the
bright hills, without chasm or crag, the flow of the bending rivers,
without rock or rapid, and the fruitfulness of the fair earth, without
care or labor on the part of its inhabitants, appeal to the most
pleasant passions of eye and sense, calling for no effort of body, and
impressing no fear on the mind. In hill country we have a struggle to
maintain with the elements; in simple blue, we have not the luxuriance
of delight: here