e spare low tints; and when
the snow falls and lies, as it does to-day, the whole scene has a still
and mournful beauty, a pure economy of contrasted light and gloom. Yet
the trained perception of the artist does not dwell upon the thought of
the place as upon a perpetual feast of beauty and delight. Rather, it
shames me to reflect, one dwells upon it as a quarry of effects, where
one can find and detach the note of background, the sweet symbol that
will lend point and significance to the scene that one is labouring at.
Instead of being content to gaze, to listen, to drink in, one thinks
only what one can carry away and make one's own. If one's art were
purely altruistic, if one's aim were to emphasise some sweet aspect of
nature which the careless might otherwise overlook or despise; or even
if the sight haunted one like a passion, and fed the heart with hope
and love, it would be well. But does one in reality feel either of
these purposes? Speaking candidly, I do not. I care very little for my
message to the world. It is true that I have a deep and tender love for
the gracious things of earth; but I cannot be content with that. One
thinks of Wordsworth, rapt in contemplation, sitting silent for a whole
morning, his eyes fixed upon the pool of the moorland stream, or the
precipice with the climbing ashes. It was like a religion to him, a
communion with something holy and august which in that moment drew near
to his soul. But with me it is different. To me the passion is to
express it, to embalm it, in phrase or word, not for my pride in my
art, not for any desire to give the treasure to others, but simply, so
it seems, in obedience to a tyrannous instinct to lend the thought, the
sight, another shape. I despair of defining the feeling. It is partly a
desire to arrest the fleeting moment, to give it permanence in the
ruinous lapse of things, the same feeling that made old Herrick say to
the daffodils, "We weep to see you haste away so soon." Partly the joy
of the craftsman in making something that shall please the eye and ear.
It is not the desire to create, as some say, but to record. For when
one writes an impassioned scene, it seems no more an act of creation
than one feels about one's dreams. The wonder of dreams is that one
does not make them; they come upon one with all the pleasure of
surprise and experience. They are there; and so, when one indulges
imagination, one does not make, one merely tells the dream. It is