as he states it, and
surely nature works not by such measure rule. We suspect, for nature
we should here read Turner, for his trees, certainly, are strange
things; it is true, he generally shirks them. We do not remember one
picture that has a good, true, _bona fide_, conspicuous tree in it.
The reader will not be surprised to learn that the worst painter of
trees was Gaspar Poussin! and that the perfection of trees is to be
found in Turner's "Marley," where most people will think the trees
look more like brooms than trees. The chapter on "the Truth of Turner"
concludes with a quotation--we presume the extract from a letter from
Mr Turner to the author. If so, Mr Turner has somewhat caught the
author's style, and tells very simple truths in a very fine manner,
thus:--"I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make
_them_ tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this,
and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the
night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read
this, and interpret this, and let us feel together." We must pause.
Really we do not see the slightest necessity of an interpretation
here. It is a simple fact. He cannot extract "sunbeams" from
cucumbers--from the east, we should say. The only riddle seems to be,
that they should, in one instance, remember together, and in the
other, feel together; only we guess that, being night-gloom, people
naturally feel about them in the dark. But he proceeds--"And if you
have not that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not
the sun in your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words
may awaken, though they be indistinct and swift, leave me." We must
pause again; here _is_ a riddle: what can be the meaning of having the
sun in one's spirit?--is it any thing like having the moon in one's
head? We give it up. The passion in the heart we suppose to be dead
asleep, and the words and voice harsh and grating, and so it is
awakened. But what that if, or if not, has to do with "leave me," we
cannot conjecture; but this we do venture to conjecture, that to
expect our graduate ever to _leave_ Mr Turner is one of the most
hopeless of all Mr Turner's "Fallacies of Hope." But the writer
proceeds with a _for_--that appears, nevertheless, a pretty
considerable _non-sequitur_. "For I will give you no patient mockery,
no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am and whom I
serve." Her