100 COSMOS. 



anlimited in space, it traces the skirts of tlie forest till they 

 are wholly lost in the aerial distance, dashes the mountain 

 torrent from cliff to clif!^ and spreads the deep azure of the 

 tropical sky alike over the summits of the lofty palms and 

 over the waving grass of the plain that bounds the horizon. 

 The luminous and colored effects imparted to all terrestrial 

 objects by the light of the thinly- vailed or pure tropical sky, 

 gives a peculiar and mysterious power to landscape painting, 

 when the artist succeeds in reproducing this mild effect of light. 

 The sky in the landscape has, from a profound appreciation 

 for the nature of Greek tragedy, been ingeniously compared to 

 the charm of the chorus in its general and mediative effect.* 



The multiplication of means at the command of painting 

 for exciting the fancy, and concentrating the grandest phe- 

 nomena of sea and land on a small space, is denied to our 

 plantations and gardens, but this deficiency in the total effect 

 is compensated for by the sway ^^hich reality every where 

 exercises over the senses. When, in the Messrs. Loddiges' 

 palm-house, or in the jPfauen-I?isel, near Potsdam (a monu- 

 ment of the simple love of nature of my noble and departed 

 sovereign), we look down from the high gallery in the bright 

 noonday sun on the luxuriant reed and tree-like palms below, 

 we feel, for a moment, in a state of complete delusion as to 

 the locality to which we are transported, and we may even 

 believe ourselves to be actually in a tropical climate, looking 

 from the summit of a hill on a small grove of palms. It is 

 true that the aspect of the deep azure of the sky, and the im- 

 pression produced by a greater intensity of light, are wanting, 

 but, notwithstanding, the illusion is more perfect, and exer- 

 cises a stronger effect on the imagination than is excited by 

 the most perfect painting. Fancy associates with every plant 

 the wonders of some distant region, as we listen to the rust- 

 ling of the fan-like leaves, and see the changing and flitting 

 effect of the light, when the tops of the palms, gently moved 

 by currents of air, come in contact as they wave to and fro. 

 So great is the charm produced by reality, although the rec- 

 ollection of the artificial care bestowed on the plants certainly 

 exercises a disturbing influence. Perfect development and 

 freedom are inseparably connected with nature, and in the 

 eyes of the zealous and botanical traveler, the dried plants of 

 an herbarium, collected on the Cordilleras of South America 

 or in the plains of India, are often more precious than the as- 

 pect of the same species of plants within a European hot- 



* Wilh. von Humboldt, in his Briefwechsel mit Schiller, 1830, s. 470 



