ly; shadows of cloud, and gleams of shallow water on white sand
alternating--miles away; but no sail is visible, not one fisher-boat on
the beach, not one dark speck on the quiet horizon. Beyond all are the
Cumberland mountains, clear in the sun, with rosy light on all their
crags.

245. I should think the reader cannot but feel the kind of harmony there
is in this composition; the entire purpose of the painter to give us the
impression of wild, yet gentle, country life, monotonous as the
succession of the noiseless waves, patient and enduring as the rocks;
but peaceful, and full of health and quiet hope, and sanctified by the
pure mountain air and baptismal dew of heaven, falling softly between
days of toil and nights of innocence.

246. All noble composition of this kind can be reached only by
instinct; you cannot set yourself to arrange such a subject; you may see
it, and seize it, at all times, but never laboriously invent it. And
your power of discerning what is best in expression, among natural
subjects, depends wholly on the temper in which you keep your own mind;
above all, on your living so much alone as to allow it to become acutely
sensitive in its own stillness. The noisy life of modern days is wholly
incompatible with any true perception of natural beauty. If you go down
into Cumberland by the railroad, live in some frequented hotel, and
explore the hills with merry companions, however much you may enjoy your
tour or their conversation, depend upon it you will never choose so much
as one pictorial subject rightly; you will not see into the depth of
any. But take knapsack and stick, walk towards the hills by short day's
journeys,--ten or twelve miles a day--taking a week from some
starting-place sixty or seventy miles away: sleep at the pretty little
wayside inns, or the rough village ones; then take the hills as they
tempt you, following glen or shore as your eye glances or your heart
guides, wholly scornful of local fame or fashion, and of everything
which it is the ordinary traveler's duty to see, or pride to do. Never
force yourself to admire anything when you are not in the humor; but
never force yourself away from what you feel to be lovely, in search of
anything better; and gradually the deeper scenes of the natural world
will unfold themselves to you in still increasing fullness of passionate
power; and your difficulty will be no more to seek or to compose
subjects, but only to choose one from among