of some of Reynolds' touches is quite beyond telling.

[31] Especially in distinction of species of things. It may be
doubtful whether in a great picture we are to represent the bloom
upon a grape, but never doubtful that we are to paint a grape so as
to be known from a cherry.

CHAPTER V.

OF TURNERIAN MYSTERY:--SECONDLY, WILFUL.

Sec. 1. In the preceding chapter we were concerned only with the mystery
necessary in all great art. We have yet to inquire into the nature of
that more special love of concealment in which Turner is the leading
representative of modern cloud-worship; causing Dr. Waagen sapiently to
remark that "he" had here succeeded in combining "a crude painted medley
with a general foggy appearance."[32]

As, for defence of his universal indistinctness, my appeal was in the
last chapter to universal fact, so, for defence of this special
indistinctness, my first appeal is in this chapter to special fact. An
English painter justifiably loves fog, because he is born in a foggy
country; as an Italian painter justifiably loves clearness, because he
is born in a comparatively clear country. I have heard a traveller
familiar with the East complain of the effect in a picture of Copley
Fielding's, that "it was such very bad weather." But it ought not to be
bad weather to the English. Our green country depends for its life on
those kindly rains and floating swirls of cloud; we ought, therefore, to
love them and to paint them.

Sec. 2. But there is no need to rest my defence on this narrow English
ground. The fact is, that though the climates of the South and East may
be _comparatively_ clear, they are no more absolutely clear than our own
northern air; and that wherever a landscape-painter is placed, if he
paints faithfully, he will have continually to paint effects of mist.
Intense clearness, whether in the North after or before rain, or in some
moments of twilight in the South, is always, as far as I am acquainted
with natural phenomena, a _notable_ thing. Mist of some sort, or
mirage, or confusion of light, or of cloud, are the general facts; the
distance may vary in different climates at which the effects of mist
begin, but they are always present; and therefore, in all probability it
is meant that we should enjoy them.

Sec. 3. Nor does it seem to me in any wise difficult to understand why they
should be thus appointed for enjoyment. In former parts of this work we
were able to tr