Source identified1
Image design Linen
Read & copy
“’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue.”
Meaning & context
Campbell uses a distant mountain to show how remoteness can make a scene—and, by analogy, anticipated future happiness—appear especially attractive.
Source details
The Pleasures of Hope, Part I, represented in The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, Project Gutenberg #59788. ‘’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view’ appears in the poem's opening mountain image and immediately leads into a comparison with imagined future joys appearing more pleasing from afar. It remains Romantic poetic analogy and philosophical observation rather than an empirical law of visual perception, memory or decision-making.