"
The very sound of the words seems to correspond to the idea.
Notice the repetition of the letter _i_ in "Level lines of dewy mist lay
stretched along the valley." This repetition of a letter is called
alliteration, and here it serves to suggest in and of itself the idea
of the level. The same effect is produced again in "streak of sunlit
snow" with the repetition of _s_. The entire passage is filled with
_alliteration,_ but it is used so naturally that you would never think
of it unless your attention were called to it.
Next, we note that the structure rises gradually but steadily upward.
We never jump to loftiness, and always find it necessary to climb there.
"Jumping to loftiness" is like trying to lift oneself by one's
boot-straps: it is very ridiculous to all who behold it. Ruskin begins
with a very ordinary sentence. He says it was a fine morning,
just as any one might say it. But the next sentence starts suddenly
upward from the dead level, and to the end of the paragraph we
rise, terrace on terrace, by splendid sweeps and jagged cliffs,
till at the end we reach "the eternal snow."
Exercise.
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