THE MAY SKY 



The May Sky 



Why do people go abroad who seek noble 

 seascape, alight with every conceivable shade of 

 blue, grey, and green, presented in stripe and layer, 

 never two quite alike whilst there is azure and 

 cloud mingled ? They do not go for this at all, 

 it is clear enough, but for something quite different. 

 If a watcher of English seascape, before going to 

 Norwegian fiord or Italian lake, waits till he has 

 half exhausted, say, the North Sea, the Solent, 

 or the Atlantic off the west of Ireland, he never 

 starts. This is the simple truth. I have watched 

 the Solent for more than a quarter of a century, 

 and despair of growing familiar with its amazing 

 variety of water, sky, and coast scene. Each day 

 each hour in that day some new effect. The 

 best scenes of all seemed in September the best 

 scenes of all seem in May. 



Set aside the deep human interest of this 

 English sea, the national emotion which the 

 commerce of Southampton Water and the thunders 

 of Spithead stir one still has a summer scene of 

 perpetual enchantment. The May sky with its 

 clouds is God's palette, the deep His canvas. Not 

 two pictures on that canvas in colour and form 

 together exactly the same of the millions that are 

 painted there in summer ! Blue sky, white and 

 grey cloud, green water ; by the union of these 

 large, simple colours a diversity of hue and effect 

 is secured which is the despair of the most cunning 



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