ld instantly go
wrong; it is only the clumsy and uninventive artist who thinks. All
these changes come into his head involuntarily; an entirely imperative
dream, crying, "thus it must be," has taken possession of him; he can
see, and do, no otherwise than as the dream directs.

This is especially to be remembered with respect to the next
incident--the introduction of figures. Most persons to whom I have shown
the drawing, and who feel its general character, regret that there is
any living thing in it; they say it destroys the majesty of its
desolation. But the dream said not so to Turner. The dream insisted
particularly upon the great fact of its having come by the road. The
torrent was wild, the stones were wonderful; but the most wonderful
thing of all was how we ourselves, the dream and I, ever got here. By
our feet we could not--by the clouds we could not--by any ivory gates we
could not--in no other wise could we have come than by the coach road.
One of the great elements of sensation, all the day long, has been that
extraordinary road, and its goings on, and gettings about; here, under
avalanches of stones, and among insanities of torrents, and overhangings
of precipices, much tormented and driven to all manner of makeshifts and
coils to this side and the other, still the marvellous road persists in
going on, and that so smoothly and safely, that it is not merely great
diligences, going in a caravanish manner, with whole teams of horses,
that can traverse it, but little postchaises with small postboys, and a
pair of ponies. And the dream declared that the full essence and soul of
the scene, and consummation of all the wonderfulness of the torrents and
Alps, lay in a postchaise, with small ponies and postboy, which
accordingly it insisted upon Turner's inserting, whether he liked it or
not, at the turn of the road.

Sec. 16. Now, it will be observed by any one familiar with ordinary
principles of arrangement of form (on which principles I shall insist at
length in another place), that while the dream introduces these changes
bearing on the expression of the scene, it is also introducing other
changes, which appear to be made more or less in compliance with
received rules of composition,[10] rendering the masses broader, the
lines more continuous, and the curves more graceful. But the curious
part of the business is, that these changes seem not so much to be
wrought by imagining an entirely new condition of any fea