l
the others; and we feel with every one, that though we cannot tell what
it is, it cannot be _anything_; while even the most dexterous distances
of the old masters pretend to secrecy without having anything to
conceal, and are ambiguous, not from the concentration of meaning, but
from the want of it.

Sec. 11. The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances.

And now, take up one of Turner's distances, it matters not which, or of
what kind,--drawing or painting, small or great, done thirty years ago,
or for last year's Academy, as you like; say that of the Mercury and
Argus, and look if every fact which I have just been pointing out in
nature be not carried out in it. Abundant, beyond the power of the eye
to embrace or follow, vast and various, beyond the power of the mind to
comprehend, there is yet not one atom in its whole extent and mass which
does not suggest more than it represents; nor does it suggest vaguely,
but in such a manner as to prove that the conception of each individual
inch of that distance is absolutely clear and complete in the master's
mind, a separate picture fully worked out: but yet, clearly and fully as
the idea is formed, just so much of it is given, and no more, as nature
would have allowed us to feel or see; just so much as would enable a
spectator of experience and knowledge to understand almost every minute
fragment of separate detail, but appears, to the unpractised and
careless eye, just what a distance of nature's own would appear, an
unintelligible mass. Not one line out of the millions there is without
meaning, yet there is not one which is not affected and disguised by the
dazzle and indecision of distance. No form is made out, and yet no form
is unknown.

Sec. 12. Farther illustrations in architectural drawing.

Perhaps the truth of this system of drawing is better to be understood
by observing the distant character of rich architecture, than of any
other object. Go to the top of Highgate Hill on a clear summer morning
at five o'clock, and look at Westminster Abbey. You will receive an
impression of a building enriched with multitudinous vertical lines. Try
to distinguish one of those lines all the way down from the one next to
it: You cannot. Try to count them: You cannot. Try to make out the
beginning or end of any one of them: You cannot. Look at it generally,
and it is all symmetry and arrangement. Look at in its parts, and it is
all inextricable confusion. Am not I, at t