Perspective without Binoculars

In the distance, I see a small private lake next to a huge hill covered with what appears to be freshly-mown grass.  Looking through my binoculars, I see that atop the hill is a very large house with four or five white columns along its front side.  Above the columns, protruding from the roof, are three dormer windows.  The sheer size of the place…and the lake, the pristine grass-covered hill, and the position of the house as if it were the overlord of a manor…suggest massive amounts of money are available to the people who own and maintain the place.  It looks impressive, though architecturally out of step with my tastes.  But the impressiveness of its appearance evaporates in an instance when I look slightly left and above the house. There, in the sky above the distant hills, I see a mass of white clouds, tinted pink by the afternoon sun, turning grey and rolling as if they were within a cauldron.  It seems to be the early stages of a thunderstorm.  The size of the clouds and, indeed, the sky in general, suddenly make the huge house look tiny and fragile and inconsequential.  It’s all a matter of perspective.