34 SYLVAN SECBETS. 



ming, and I note the same freedom of curve, 

 the same unconscious sweep along the hne of 

 beauty which has immortaHzed the painter, 

 the glass-blower, and the carver. And hark ! 

 the mocking-bird again — a gush of artless mel- 

 ody rippling away through the slumberous 

 wood— sweet as the flute-notes of Marsyas or 

 the lyre-chords of Apollo. 



I do not hear half of what my friend reads, 

 for how can I listen to sea and wind and pine 

 moan and bird song and Ruskin all at once. 

 I watch the fishing-smack out yonder, beat- 

 ing in against the breeze. Now the mainsail 

 is white against the sky ; anon it is black as 

 ink ; again it is gray touched with brown. I 

 used to see pictures of ships with gloomy sails 

 blotching an almost indigo sky, and I thought 

 the pictures in bad color. Now I feel how 

 true they were. Even Ruskin might make 

 the same mistake in a criticism. This for in- 

 stance : 



Both Raphsel and Rembrandt are masters, 

 indeed ; but neither of them masters of light 

 and shade, in treatment of which the first is 

 always false, the second always vulgar. The 

 only absolute masters of light and shade are 

 those who never make you think of light and 

 shade more than nature herself does. 



But I find that nature makes me think of 

 light and shade all the time. Indeed, I see 

 nothing else in nature so emphasized here, so 

 accentuated there, so graded, so obtruded, so 

 dashed about and experimented with, so in- 

 sisted upon at every turn, as light and shade, 

 and he must be a vigorous brushman, cer- 

 tainly, who can get into a picture more light 

 and shade than nature habitually uses on her 

 smallest canvas. Even now the sails of the 

 smack are shining like a flake of moonshine. 



