vague in execution, and not, therefore,
quite legitimately to be claimed on the foggy side; while, finally, the
whole body of the Pre-Raphaelites--certainly the greatest men, taken as
a class, whom modern Europe has produced in concernment with the
arts--entirely agree with the elder religious painters, and do, to their
utmost, dwell in an element of light and declaration, in antagonism to
all mist and deception. Truly, the clouds seem to be getting much the
worst of it; and I feel, for the moment, as if nothing could be said for
them. However, having been myself long a cloud-worshipper, and passed
many hours of life in the pursuit of them from crag to crag, I must
consider what can possibly be submitted in their defence, and in
Turner's.

Sec. 3. The first and principal thing to be submitted is, that the clouds
_are there_. Whether we like them or not, it is a fact that by far the
largest spaces of the habitable world are full of them. That is Nature's
will in the matter; and whatever we may theoretically determine to be
expedient or beautiful, she has long ago determined what shall _be_. We
may declare that clear horizons and blue skies form the most exalted
scenery; but for all that, the bed of the river in the morning will
still be traced by its line of white mist, and the mountain peaks will
be seen at evening only in the rents between their blue fragments of
towering cloud. Thus it is, and that so constantly, that it is
impossible to become a faithful landscape painter without continually
getting involved in effects of this kind. We may, indeed, avoid them
systematically, but shall become narrow mannerists if we do.

Sec. 4. But not only is there a _partial_ and variable mystery thus caused
by clouds and vapors throughout great spaces of landscape; there is a
continual mystery caused throughout _all_ spaces, caused by the absolute
infinity of things. WE NEVER SEE ANYTHING CLEARLY. I stated this fact
partly in the chapter on Truth of Space, in the first volume, but not
with sufficient illustration, so that the reader might by that chapter
have been led to infer that the mystery spoken of belonged to some
special distance of the landscape, whereas the fact is, that everything
we look at, be it large or small, near or distant, has an equal quantity
of mystery in it; and the only question is, not how much mystery there
is, but at what part of the object mystification begins. We suppose we
see the ground under our fe