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Show 112 for beauty by the way. But this care, so keenly and narrowly concentrated, is not without advantages. One is thoroughly aroused. Compared with the alertness of the senses and corresponding precision and power of the muscles on such occasions, one may be said to sleep all the rest of the year. The mind and body remain awake for some time after the dangerous ground is passed, so that arriving on the summit with the grand outlook - all the world spread below - one is able to see it better, and brings to the feast a far keener vision, and reaps richer harvests than would have been possible ere the presence of danger summoned him to life. So the view from the summit became the harvest, the enlightenment which followed awakening. However, the view from Ritter's summit, or from that of Rainier, for instance, could not be understood in aesthetic or hedonistic terms, because the climber was faced with more than a "pleasing prospect," or simple pleasure. Muir did not always feel that a summit was the best place for appreciating the harmony of a landscape. This was certainly not true on the top of Half Dome, where views of Yosemite Valley were "far less striking than from any other points, chiefly because of the forshortening effect produced by looking from so great a height." As we shall see, the value of summit views was a major issue in Victorian literature of mountaineering, and for good reason. For now, let me observe that Ritter was |