in Thoreau’s Journal:

Climbed the wooded hill by Holden’s spruce swamp, and got a novel view of the river and Fair Haven Bay through the almost leafless woods. How much handsomer a river or lake such as ours seen thus through a foreground of scattered or else partially leafless trees, through at a considerable distance this side of it, especially if the water is open, without a wooded shore or isles. It is the most perfect and beautiful of frames, which yet the sketcher is commonly carefully to brush aside. I mean a pretty thick foreground, a view of the distant water through the near forest, through a thousand little vistas, as we are rushing towards the former, that intimate mingling of wood and water which excites an expectation the the near and open view rarely realizes. We prefer that some part be concealed which our imagination may navigate.