button to main menu  Description of Sixty Studies, pp.90-91
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page 90:-
and seldom more than one hundred yards from it.
Wast Water has, in its composition, more of the sublime than any other of the English lakes, the mountains are not only higher than the other mountains of the country, but swelling proudly above their intersecting bases, each has a distinct and characteristic appearance.
Mountains frequently appear high or low proportionately to the quantity of surface disclosed to the eye; thus, Gable, which is only outtopped by Scho-fell, from the highest houses at Wastdale Head, does not appear a high mountain, because a line drawn from the eye of the spectator to its summit will subtend with the surface of the mountain a very acute angle, perhaps not more than ten degrees; and were it not for perspective diminution and atmospheric density, Gable would not appear higher than any other moun-
page 91:-
[moun]tain, having its altitude in any part of the line drawn from the eye to the summit of Gable.
Ascend from this place to Sty Head, which is a great height, and here Gable, displaying more superficies, appears much higher than it does from the houses; but rise to the top of Sprinkling, and it will appear to the spectator's horizon much higher than it did even from the Sty; though the Sty is perhaps not more than half the perpendicular height of Sprinkling above the level of the valley.
View any scene from the surface of an horizontal valley, and the materials will appear confusedly huddled together; ascend one of its circumjacent mountains, and you see, distinctly, every object contained in that valley: Such choice will not suit the feelings of an artist, nor of the lover, whose stands for beauty will generally be of a moderate degree of elevation, and
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