on the canvas of the wagon at the end of the street, and
the crimson color of the bricks of his neighbor's chimney, know of the
flood of fire which deluges the sky from the horizon to the zenith? What
can even the quiet inhabitant of the English lowlands, whose scene for
the manifestation of the fire of heaven is limited to the tops of
hayricks, and the rooks' nests in the old elm-trees, know of the mighty
passages of splendor which are tossed from Alp to Alp over the azure of
a thousand miles of champaign? Even granting the constant vigor of
observation, and supposing the possession of such impossible knowledge,
it needs but a moment's reflection to prove how incapable the memory is
of retaining for any time the distinct image of the sources even of its
most vivid impressions. What recollection have we of the sunsets which
delighted us last year? We may know that they were magnificent, or
glowing, but no distinct image of color or form is retained--nothing of
whose _degree_ (for the great difficulty with the memory is to retain,
not facts, but _degrees_ of fact) we could be so certain as to say of
anything now presented to us, that it is like it. If we did say so, we
should be wrong; for we may be quite certain that the energy of an
impression fades from the memory, and becomes more and more indistinct
every day; and thus we compare a faded and indistinct image with the
decision and certainty of one present to the senses. How constantly do
we affirm that the thunder-storm of last week was the most terrible one
we ever saw in our lives, because we compare it, not with the
thunder-storm of last year, but with the faded and feeble recollection
of it. And so, when we enter an exhibition, as we have no definite
standard of truth before us, our feelings are toned down and subdued to
the quietness of color which is all that human power can ordinarily
attain to; and when we turn to a piece of higher and closer truth,
approaching the pitch of the color of nature, but to which we are not
guided, as we should be in nature, by corresponding gradations of light
everywhere around us, but which is isolated and cut off suddenly by a
frame and a wall, and surrounded by darkness and coldness, what can we
expect but that it should surprise and shock the feelings? Suppose,
where the Napoleon hung in the Academy last year, there could have been
left, instead, an opening in the wall, and through that opening, in the
midst of the obscurity of