Art Out-of-Doors 



tor of landscapes, actually creates these 

 things. Such beauties as the landscape- 

 painter and the idyllic poet tell us about, 

 he puts before our eyes. He owes them a 

 debt for what their works may have taught 

 him ; but he does not celebrate their work 

 — it is for them to celebrate his. 



When we have studied his works in their 

 best examples, when we understand their 

 genesis as compounds of Nature and art, 

 and realize the skill and imagination which 

 were needed to make them seem, not arti- 

 ficial compounds, but vital creations, then 

 we may easily feel that nothing in the world 

 is better worth celebrating. It is the right 

 and property of all successful things, declares 

 Emerson, to be for their moment the top 

 of the world." Whatever we look at, un- 

 derstandingly and lovingly, seems complete 

 and self-sufficient, including and assimilat- 

 ing all the powers of beauty. Then, he 

 says, presently we pass to some other ob- 

 ject which rounds itself into a whole as did 

 the first ; for example, a well-laid garden ; 

 and nothing seems v/orth doing but the 

 laying-out of gardens." I wish that more 



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