yness of the
unmade hay in furrows or tufts with lovely violet shadows, and long
shades of the trees thrown athwart all, and melting away one tint into
another imperceptibly; and one moment more a cloud passes and all the
magic is gone. Begin to-morrow morning, all is changed: the hay and the
reapers are gone most likely; the sun too, or if not, it is in quite the
opposite quarter, and all that _was_ loveliest is all that is tamest
now, alas! It is better to be a poet; still better a mere lover of
Nature; one who never dreams of possession....

_Ford Madox Brown._

CXCV

You should choose an old tumbledown wall and throw over it a piece of
white silk. Then morning and evening you should gaze at it, until at
length you can see the ruin through the silk--its prominences, its
levels, its zigzags, and its cleavages, storing them up in the mind and
fixing them in the eye. Make the prominences your mountains, the lower
parts your water, the hollows your ravines, the cracks your streams, the
lighter parts your nearer points, the darker parts your more distant
points. Get all these thoroughly into you, and soon you will see men,
birds, plants, and trees, flying and moving among them. You may then ply
your brush according to your fancy, and the result will be of heaven,
not of men.

_Sung Ti_ (Chinese, eleventh century).

CXCVI

By looking attentively at old and smeared walls, or stones and veined
marble of various colours, you may fancy that you see in them several
compositions--landscapes, battles, figures in quick motion, strange
countenances, and dresses, with an infinity of other objects. By these
confused lines the inventive genius is excited to new exertions.

_Leonardo._

CXCVII

Out by a quarter to eight to examine the river Brent at Hendon; a mere
brooklet, running in most dainty sinuosity under overshadowing oaks and
all manner of leafiness. Many beauties, and hard to choose amongst, for
I had determined to make a little picture of it. However, Nature, that
at first sight appears so lovely, is on consideration almost always
incomplete; moreover, there is no painting intertangled foliage without
losing half its beauties. If imitated exactly it can only be done as
seen from one eye, and quite flat and confused therefore.

_Ford Madox Brown._

CXCVIII

To gaze upon the clouds of autumn, a soaring exaltation in the soul; to
feel the spring breeze stirring wild exultant thoughts;--what is there
in