OCTOBER 83 



I do think that if we would enjoy the Rhine in its 

 beauty we must visit it in winter, when we see it as 

 Turner saw it. What a pleasure it is now to go to those 

 rooms on the ground floor of the National Gallery where 

 Turner's sketches are ! I went there again the other day 

 to see the Ehine of one's youth. What a king and 

 creator of Impressionist sketching was Turner in his later 

 manner ! He lifted the hilltops till they grew pink in 

 the setting sun, and he trailed the long reflections to 

 fathomless depths in the broad river. And was not the 

 fortress defiantly impregnable in those days, and so 

 rendered by him in those two wonderful pink and yellow 

 and blue Ehrenbreitstein sketches? How quickly and 

 easily all his effects and gradations are produced ! If they 

 were not consummate, we should now call them cheap. 

 I had not seen these rooms in the National Gallery for 

 some years. They are beautifully arranged so warm, so 

 light, and alas ! so empty. At least, when I was there I 

 wandered alone. How true it is that what we can have 

 always we care for so little, and how we toil as tourists 

 in foreign towns ! 



It seems rather ridiculous to have brought back from 

 Germany a French poem. But I heard there for the first 

 time one of Tosti's earlier songs, the words of which seemed 

 to me sympathetic and full of charm. They are written 

 by a Comtesse de Castellane, and, as they are very little 

 known apart from the music, I quote them here for the 

 benefit of the non-singing world which, after all, is 

 rather a large one : 



VOUS ET MOI 



Vos yeux sereins et purs ont voulu me sourire, 

 Votre main comme une aile a caress^ ma main, 



Mais je ne sais trouver, helas ! rien a vous dire, 

 Car nous ne marchons pas dans le mSme chemin. 



G 2 



