True, the same picture is
painted upon the retina of all classes of observers; and so Porson and a
schoolboy and a peasant might receive the same physical impression from
a set of black and white marks on the page of a Greek play; but to one
they would be an incoherent conglomeration of unmeaning and capricious
lines, to another they would represent certain sounds more or less
corresponding to some English words; whilst to the scholar they would
reveal some of the noblest poetry in the world, and all the associations
of successful intellectual labour. I do not say that the difference is
quite so great in the case of the mountains; still I am certain that no
one can decipher the natural writing on the face of a snow-slope or a
precipice who has not wandered amongst their recesses, and learnt by
slow experience what is indicated by marks which an ignorant observer
would scarcely notice. True, even one who sees a mountain for the first
time may know that, as a matter of fact, a scar on the face of a cliff
means, for example, a recent fall of a rock; but between the bare
knowledge and the acquaintance with all which that knowledge
implies--the thunder of the fall, the crash of the smaller fragments,
the bounding energy of the descending mass--there is almost as much
difference as between hearing that a battle has been fought and being
present at it yourself.
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