"Distant objects please, because in the first place, they imply an idea
of space and magnitude, and because, not being obtruded too close upon
the eye, we clothe them with the indistinct and airy colours of
fancy. In
looking at the misty mountain-tops that bound the horizon, the mind is
as it were conscious of all the conceivable objects and interests that
lie between; we imagine all sorts of adventures in the interim; strain
our hopes and wishes to reach the air-drawn circle, or to 'descry new
lands, rivers, and mountains,' stretching far beyond it: our feelings,
carried out of themselves, lose their grossness and their husk, are
rarefied, expanded, melt into softness and brighten into beauty, turning
to ethereal mould, sky-tinctured. We drink the air before us, and
borrow a more refined existence from objects that hover on the brink of
nothing. Where the landscape fades from the dull sight, we fill the
thin, viewless space with shapes of unknown good, and tinge the hazy
prospect with hopes and wishes and more charming fears."
—William Hazlitt on Why Distant Objects Please, Essay XXVI in Table-Talk [ca1778-1830] (London: George Bell & Sons, 1902) p356.
see also http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3020
—William Hazlitt on Why Distant Objects Please, Essay XXVI in Table-Talk [ca1778-1830] (London: George Bell & Sons, 1902) p356.
see also http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3020
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