ON LOOKING AT THE SKY 



or the bracing stillness of a Quebec winter 

 morning sends one's blood tingling to the 

 surface. 



With a woman's logic I defy all critics, 

 judges and lexicographers. If the sea and 

 the wind and the sky are not landscape, 

 what are they? Joshua Bender had a large 

 bowl in which he kept soft soap. When he 

 put it on the inventory for the auctioneer 

 at the vendue he entered it as "i sope bole." 

 And when his daughter called him to task 

 for bad spelling he said, "Ef that don't spell 

 soap bowl what does it spell?" But my case 

 is a better one than Joshua Bender's. 



The sky is a necessary part of every 

 complete landscape. The painter paints it 

 with infinite pains, and the photographers 

 insist upon it. One waggish critic of 

 amateur snap-shots long ago called those 

 skyless pictures baldheaded landscapes, 

 and his word has stuck. So common, so 

 varied, and so necessary are these sky 

 pictures that every practical photographer 

 keeps a selection of them in stock, and uses 

 them in making up his landscape views. 

 A representation of scenery without a sky 

 is like a girl without a smile, or like a mug 

 of beer after the foam has died. 



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