The Alps - Tapa blanda

JOHN RUSKIN, in a fine and famous passage, describes the effect of a first view of the Alps upon a young and sensitive mind. He was at Schaffhausen with his parents. "We must have spent some time in town-seeing," he writes, "for it was drawing towards sunset when we got up to some sort of garden promenade—west of the town, I believe; and high above the Rhine, so as to command the open country across it to the south and west. At which open country of low undulation, far into blue—gazing as at one of our own distances from Malvern of Worcestershire, or Dorking of Kent,—suddenly—behold—beyond!