The Beauty of Trees 



than a mere recorder of natural facts, a 

 mere reporter in prosaic speech of things 

 actually seen in this spot or that, his results 

 would still be of service, enlarging our field 

 of observation by the addition of his field, 

 and preserving for constant examination ef- 

 fects which are transitory in Nature. But 

 a true painter is much more than this. He 

 has at his command the power to preserve 

 general truth of effect and yet accen- 

 tuate certain special truths more forcibly 

 than, to our eyes. Nature has presented 

 them. This power of interpretation in one 

 artist's work makes some one given thing 

 more plain than Nature made it; in another 

 artist's it makes another thing more plain, 

 and in the combined work of all it makes 

 Nature as a whole more plain, more vivid, 

 more impressive. No matter how carefully 

 and patiently we may study Nature in herself, 

 we do not appreciate her to the full until we 

 know what the great painters of the world 

 have seen in her — how her forms, her text- 

 ures, her colors have appeared to eyes, tastes, 

 and feelings which by birth are clearer and 

 keener than those of the average man, and 

 267 



