166 With Feet to the Earth 



second. Turner, Tryon, Troyon, Walker, 

 Thayer, Ranger, illustrate in their art a 

 kindred change. This is not a mere matter 

 of setting the palette : it proves the dawn 

 of spiritual sight upon the eye that has 

 been watching for it across the edge of the 

 material world. So soon as we, too, behold 

 that dawn, life, no less than nature, brightens 

 in it, and we know content. The right- 

 minded rustic is not a gloomy man. If it 

 comes to that, your pessimist, wherever you 

 find him, is a living denial of his faith. The 

 only consistent pessimist is a dead one. 



