Sir Joshua Fitch's Address 273 



" In his latest works there was the obscurity but also the 

 truth of prophecy, the instinctive and burning language which 

 would express less if it uttered more, which is indistinct only by 

 its fulness and dark with its abundant meaning. He felt, and 

 with long-trained vividness and keenness of sense, too bitterly 

 the impotence of the hand and the vainness of the colour to 

 catch one shadow or one image of the glory which God had 

 revealed to him." 



" I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the East, or I would 

 make them tell you what I have seen ; but read this, interpret 

 this, and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom 

 out of the night sky, or I would make that teach you what I 

 have seen ; but read this, interpret this, and let us feel together. 

 And if you have not that within you which I can summon to 

 my aid, if you have not the sun in your spirit, and the passion 

 in your heart, which my words and touches may awaken though 

 they be indistinct and swift, leave me; for I will give you no 

 patient mockery, no laborious insult of that glorious Nature 

 whose I am and whom I serve." 



Is it not fitting that at the very time when Turner 

 was working in this spirit, another student of Nature, 

 secluded among the Westmorland hills, should be 

 writing thusi* — 



" I have learned 

 To look on Nature, not as in the hour 

 Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing often-times 

 The still, sad music of humanity. 

 Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 

 To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 

 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 

 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 

 Of something far more deeply interfused. 

 Whose dwelling is the hght of setting suns. 

 And the round ocean and the living air, 

 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 

 A motion and a spirit, that impels 

 All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 

 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 



