42 January — Eglantine, 



in the pecuniary sense, for scientific students appear to 

 be satisfied with the sort of drawing which sets down 

 what they want to know, whilst lovers of art are satisfied 

 with nothing short of full artistic synthesis both in con- 

 ception and execution, and yet the sort of work I now 

 suggest would reward the laborer by certain delicate, 

 intimate satisfactions of its own. 



There are often very brilliant colors in the wintry 

 landscape, but the difficulty in making artistic use of 

 the material that it presents would be to harmonize the 

 color-material into synthesis. You may find very fresh- 

 looking greens, and very bright reds, but there is a want 

 of quieter color in their neighborhood sufficiently re- 

 sembling them in quality to lead up to them as a climax. 

 The coloring of Nature is not always good or available 

 for art, any more than all her plants for food, and it is 

 one of the first results of culture in an artist when he 

 is able to perceive this. It is mere fanaticism to speak 

 of the fortuitous arrangements of color which occur in 

 natural -scenery as examples of divine art which it is 

 impiety to criticise. The simple truth is, that a plant 

 will bud or fructify at a time determined by the action 

 of heat or moisture upon its vessels, without the least 

 reference to its effect upon a color-composition in the 

 landscape. For instance, you may have a bush of eglan- 

 tine, which will be a perfect mass of vermilion on account 

 of its fruit. The stalks will be a very dark purple in 

 shade, but crimson in the evening light, and they inten- 

 sify the vermilion of the berries. Ten to one, this piece 

 of splendor will be entirely isolated, and it will kill all 



