TREES IN MODERN PAINTING 275 



The broken sheds look'd sad and strange : 

 Unlifted was the clinking latch ; 

 Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 



Upon the lonely moated grange. 



Why this minute detail ? Because the poet 

 could by means of it make us realise the weari- 

 ness of the woman who had looked out upon 

 the scene from her windows so often and so 

 long that all these details had been forced 

 upon her notice and had become, each one, 

 an element in the monotony of her existence. 

 The detail given by Holman Hunt and Millais, 

 and by Jefferies in his essays, serves the 

 exactly opposite purpose : to intensify our 

 pleasure in the beauty of nature, that is to say, 

 of course, if we are not unhappy, like the lady 

 of the moated grange. Mr. Byam Shaw has 

 painted a picture of a woman, in mourning, 

 walking by a stream-side, and the trees and 

 flowers and herbage are painted with Pre- 

 Raphaelite literalness. She has been bereaved 

 by war ; and now the world looks less beauti- 

 ful to her than it did before her loss. She 

 has known each object about her, and now 

 they are all less bright, less gladsome than 

 they were. But how beautiful they were. 



