In reference to Painting, the Public are taught to look with delight
upon murky old masters, with dismally demoniac trees, and dull waters
of lead, colourless and like ice; upon rocks that make geologists
wonder, their angles are so impossible, their fractures are so new.
Thousands are given for uncomfortable Dutch sun-lights; but if you
are shown a transcript of day itself, with the purple shadow upon the
mountains, and across the still lake, you know nothing of it because
your fathers never bought such: so you look for nothing in it; nay,
let me set you in the actual place, let the water damp your feet,
stand in the chill of the shadow itself, and you will never tell me
the colour on the hill, or where the last of the crows caught the
sinking sunlight. Letting observation sleep, what can you know of
nature? and you _are_ a judge of landscape indeed. So it is that the
world is taught to think of nature, as seen through other men's eyes,
without any reference to its own original powers of perception, and
much natural beauty is lost.
To the Castle Ramparts
The Castle is erect on the hill's top,
To moulder there all day and night: it stands
With the long shadow lying at its foot.
That is a weary height which you must climb
Before you reach it; and a dizziness
Turns in your eyes when you look down from it,
So standing clearly up into the sky.
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