250 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



The greatest painters have delighted in the represen 

 tation of clouds, knowing that there is no landscape 

 that may not be improved by their celestial forms and 

 tints, and that a scene representing any passion or situ 

 ation may be heightened by such accompaniments, har 

 monizing with the cheerfulness or the sadness, with the 

 lowliness or magnificence of the subject. Poets have 

 ever been mindful of the same effects ; and the Hebrew 

 prophets have exalted the sublimity of their descrip 

 tions, and increased the efficacy of their prophecies and 

 their admonitions, by employing imagery derived from 

 these appearances, rightly deeming the scenery of the 

 heavens the most proper to illustrate their sacred themes, 

 and the divine attributes of the Deity. Hence the 

 Lord, who set his bow in a cloud as the token of a 

 covenant between him and the earth, is represented as 

 making the clouds his chariot and his pavilion when 

 ascending to heaven, or when descending to earth to 

 speak to the messengers of his will. 



I am at a loss whether to attribute the peculiar 

 pleasure that attends us, on a sight of the varied forms 

 and hues of clouds, to the physical effect of light and 

 colors upon the sensorium, or to mental association. 

 It is certain that no spectacle in nature produces so in 

 tense an emotion of cheerfulness and sublimity. The 

 latter emotion is most commonly excited by sombre 

 scenes, added to something that affects one with a cer 

 tain amount of terror, while he retains a consciousness 

 of security. But when the western clouds, piled in 

 glittering arches one above another, and widening as 

 they recede from the great source of light, exhibit their 

 several gradations of hues, from the outermost arch, 

 successively, of violet, purple, crimson, vermilion, and 

 orange, until the eyes are dazzled by the golden radi- 



