THE MASTER-BUILDER 



O one whose habitual round of life em- 

 braces daily converse with natural things, 

 and who also loves art, in that by exer- 

 cise of it he attempts to justify existence, 

 there are few facts stranger than the attitude of 

 many critical persons toward the country. I instance 

 those who find in pictures a great part of their 

 aesthetic food, who, before the revelation of Turner 

 or Constable, Walker or Clausen, feel honest joy, 

 and are uplifted by such gleanings of genius from 

 Nature. But face these same cultured souls with the 

 material out of which the masters have builded and 

 their attitude descends from enthusiasm to indiffer- 

 ence. Ask them to rise before the dawn that they may 

 see Turner's palette in the eastern sky ; desire them 

 to witness Constable's rain-clouds actually bursting in 

 silver above summer oaks; invite them to Clausen's 

 scorching stubbles, or the deep woodland that others 

 paint ; and they turn away. It is a sociological 

 mystery to me that there exist people who love a 

 day in a picture gallery better than one with 

 Nature. 



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