ou paint only crags
and deserts."

"Friend," said the Count, "beautiful nature is the form, the ground, the
material, but the soul is inspiration, which rises on the wings of
imagination, is polished by taste, and is supported by rules. Nature is
not enough, enthusiasm is not enough; the artist must fly away into the
spheres of the ideal! Not everything that is beautiful can be painted! You
will learn all this from books in the course of time. As for painting: for
a picture one requires viewpoints, grouping, ensemble--and sky, the Italian
sky! Hence in landscape art Italy was, is, and will be the country of
painters. Hence also, except for Breughel--not Van der Helle, but the
landscapist, for there are two Breughels55--and except for Ruysdael, in the
whole north where has there been a landscape artist of the first rank? The
sky, the sky is necessary."

"Our painter Orlowski,"56 interrupted Telimena, "had a Soplica's taste.
(You must know that this is the malady of the Soplicas, not to like
anything except their own country.) Orlowski, who spent his life in St.
Petersburg, a famous painter (I have some of his sketches in my desk),
dwelt close by the Emperor, in his court, as in paradise; and, Count, you
cannot believe how homesick he was, he loved constantly to call to mind
the days of his youth; he glorified everything in Poland, land, sky,
forests."

"And he was right," cried Thaddeus warmly; "that Italian sky of yours, so
far as I have heard of it, is blue and clear, but yet is like frozen
water: are not wind and storm a hundred times more beautiful? In our land,
if you merely raise your head, how many sights meet your eye! how many
scenes and pictures from the very play of the clouds! For each cloud is
different; for instance, in spring they crawl like lazy tortoises, heavy
with showers, and send down from the sky to the earth long streamers like
loose tresses: those are the streams of rain. The hail cloud flies swiftly
on the wind like a balloon; it is round and dark-blue, with a glint of
yellow in the centre; around it may be heard a mighty uproar. Even these
white cloudlets of every day, just see how rapidly they change! At first
they are like a flock of wild geese or swans; and from behind, the wind,
like a falcon, drives them into a dense throng; they crowd together, grow
and increase; new marvels! They gain curved necks, send forth manes, shoot
out rows of legs, and over the vault of the skies they fly like a