98 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



all tip over at once, and the results are at once inter- 

 mittent and protracted. But as time goes on and 

 American Progress despoils our towns one by one 

 of its picturesque qualities, qualities which made me 

 on first coming hither rush madly for color-box and 

 brushes on all sorts of inconvenient occasions, the 

 inconveniences caused by St. Genevieve must van- 

 ish also. For she cannot be dulv honored except from 

 the flat roof of adobe houses. 



Color-box? What mockery! I push aside my 

 papers as the light within doors waxes dim, and go 

 to the window. All this February afternoon a cold 

 southeast wind has been whining around the house, 

 and now, after sunset, the stormy magnificence of 

 sky and mountain beggar all attempt at description. 

 Tone that magnificence down to the uttermost, re- 

 produce it thus tempered in oil or water-color, and 

 still will you invite but the scoffs of a world more 

 ignorant than it knows. Painting such unearthly 

 sky and landscape simply can't be done — or isn't 

 done — either one. And yet how perfectly it "be- 

 longs" in that adventurous and romantic past with 

 which my mind has busied itself ! 



Crimson smoke swishing across the face of some 

 far off mountain range is just a snow flurry. That 

 mighty pipe organ sizzling redhot above the bat- 

 tered and sombre Valley stands for our own Organ 

 Peaks, in their condensed fury scarcely recognizable 

 as the rose pink, peaceful heights irradiating most 

 winter gloamings. Earth and heaven have gone 

 color-mad. Wild indigo clouds alternately blot out 

 and frame sky-pictures fantastic as dreams. The 



