the present. But this principal fact we have learned by our experiment
with the white paper, that, taken all in all, the calm sky, with such
light and shade as are in it, is brighter than the earth; brighter than
the whitest thing on earth which has not, at the moment of comparison,
heaven's own direct light on it. Which fact it is generally one of the
first objects of noble painters to render. I have already marked one
part of their aim in doing so, namely, the expression of infinity; but
the opposing of heavenly light to earth-darkness is another most
important one; and of all ways of rendering a picture generally
impressive (see especially Sec. 12. of the chapter just referred to), this
is the simplest and surest. Make the sky calm and luminous, and raise
against it dark trees, mountains, or towers, or any other substantial
and terrestrial thing, in bold outline, and the mind accepts the
assertion of this great and solemn truth with thankfulness.

Sec. 6. But this may be done either nobly or basely, as any other solemn
truth may be asserted. It may be spoken with true feeling of all that it
means; or it may be declared, as a Turk declares that "God is great,"
when he means only that he himself is lazy. The "heaven is bright," of
many vulgar painters, has precisely the same amount of signification; it
means that they know nothing--will do nothing--are without
thought--without care--without passion. They will not walk the earth,
nor watch the ways of it, nor gather the flowers of it. They will sit
in the shade, and only assert that very perceptible, long-ascertained
fact, "heaven is bright." And as it may be _asserted_ basely, so it may
be _accepted_ basely. Many of our capacities for receiving noblest
emotion are abused, in mere idleness, for pleasure's sake, and people
take the excitement of a solemn sensation as they do that of a strong
drink. Thus the abandoned court of Louis XIV. had on fast days its
sacred concerts, doubtless entering in some degree into the religious
expression of the music, and thus idle and frivolous women at the
present day will weep at an oratorio. So the sublimest effects of
landscape may be sought through mere indolence; and even those who are
not ignorant, or dull, judge often erroneously of such effects of art,
because their very openness to all pleasant and sacred association
instantly colors whatever they see, so that, give them but the feeblest
shadow of a thing they love, they are ins