together the resemblances
of fact, nor, for them, mimic the majesty of invention.[78]

Sec. 33. No happy chance--nay, no happy thought--no perfect knowledge--will
ever take the place of that mighty unconsciousness. I have often had to
repeat that Turner, in the ordinary sense of the words, neither knew nor
thought so much as other men. Whenever his _perception_ failed--that is
to say, with respect to scientific truths which produce no results
palpable to the eye--he fell into the frankest errors. For instance, in
such a thing as the relation of position between a rainbow and the sun,
there is not any definitely visible connection between them; it needs
attention and calculation to discover that the centre of the rainbow is
the shadow of the spectator's head.[79] And attention or calculation of
this abstract kind Turner appears to have been utterly incapable of; but
if he drew a piece of drapery, in which every line of the folds has a
_visible_ relation to the points of suspension, not a merely calculable
one, this relation he will see to the last thread; and thus he traces
the order of the mountain crests to their last stone, not because he
knows anything of geology, but because he instinctively seizes the last
and finest traces of any visible law.

[Illustration: FIG. 72.]

Sec. 34. He was, however, especially obedient to these laws of the crests,
because he heartily loved them. We saw in the early part of this chapter
how the crest outlines harmonized with nearly every other beautiful form
of natural objects, especially in the continuity of their external
curves. This continuity was so grateful to Turner's heart that he would
often go great lengths to serve it. For instance, in one of his drawings
of the town of Lucerne he has first outlined the Mont Pilate in pencil,
with a central peak, as indicated by the dotted line in Fig. 72. This is
nearly true to the local fact; but being inconsistent with the general
look of crests, and contrary to Turner's instincts, he strikes off the
refractory summit, and, leaving his pencil outline still in the sky,
touches with color only the contour shown by the continuous line in the
figure, thus treating it just as we saw Titian did the great Alp of the
Tyrol. He probably, however, would not have done this with so important
a feature of the scene as the Mont Pilate, had not the continuous line
been absolutely necessary to his composition, in order to oppose the
peaked towers of th