110 THE HEAVENS 



enough for us to see far distances. And extent is 

 a prime essential in the glory of a sunset. 



It is diflficult to make those who have never been 

 outside Europe understand what sunsets can be. 

 In England, as Turner has shown, there are sunsets 

 to be seen containing in abundance many such 

 elements of beauty as varied and varying and 

 great extent of colour. But the atmosphere here 

 is so thick that the colours appear as if thrown on to 

 a solid background. So the sunsets look opaque. 

 On the continent of Europe the atmosphere is 

 clearer and the opaqueness less pronounced. The 

 colouring is in consequence more vivid. But — 

 except in high Alpine regions — the clearness does 

 not approach the clearness of Tibet. And neither 

 in England nor on the Continent do we get the 

 great distances of desert sunsets. And great dis- 

 tances increase immeasurably that feeling of infinity 

 which is the chief glory in a sunset. 



The clearness of the atmosphere is important in 

 this respect also, that it produces the effect upon 

 the colours of the sunset that they seem more like 

 the colours we see in precious stones than the colours 

 a painter throws on a canvas. There is no milki- 

 ness or murkiness in them. The sky is so clear that 

 we see a colour as we see the red in a ruby. We 

 see deep into the colour. The colour comes right 

 out of the sky and has not the appearance of being 

 merely plastered on the surface. 



And the variety of the colours and the rapidity 

 with which they change and merge and mingle into 

 one another is another wonder of these desert sun- 

 sets. It would be wholly impossible to paint a 



