13 



CHAPTER I. 



MOSS. 



Denmark Hill, yd November, 1868. 



1. TT is mortifying enough to write, — but I think 

 thus much ought to be written, — concerning 

 myself, as 'the author of Modern Painters.' In 

 three months I shall be fifty years old : and I don't 

 at this hour — ten o'clock in the morning of the 

 two hundred and sixty-eighth day of my forty-ninth 

 year — know what ' moss ' is. 



There is nothing I have more intended to know — 

 some day or other. But the moss 'would always 

 be there ' ; and then it was so beautiful, and so 

 difficult to examine, that one could only do it in 

 some quite separated time of happy leisure — which 

 came not. I never was like to have less leisure 

 than now, but I will know what moss is, if possible, 

 forthwith. 



2. To that end I read preparatorily yesterday, 

 what account I could find of it in all the botanical 

 books in the house. Out of them all, I get this 



