OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE. 
819 
they wlien we are untrue to ourselves — that the icy points 
dropt in gazing from their dim far homes into our souls, 
ma}^ freeze us into shudderings of awe! — ^but these Flow- 
Stars of Earth — they do not so ! They are no deadly-eyed 
and distant strangers — but with meek upward faces they 
soothe us with soft eyes, and in the warm breath of sweetest 
odors, exhale their loving lives in tenderness for us ! This 
is the Astrology of Love that cannot lie — the Alchemy, 
Elixir, Spell that shall renew our Youth forever. 
Then let us go forth — out of doors with Nature ! 
See how even art has sold her birthright! — for after 
all that has been said in a pompous criticism about Art, 
old mother nature sets our learning at nought, in " mere sim- 
plicity." The Human Artist, working under terror of the 
''Kules," attempts too much. He does not deign to look at 
Her as his great teacher, but turning in veneration towards 
some " Name" — weak as his own except in notoriety — he in- 
carnates nature in a school, and tamely strives rather to re- 
produce its errors — ^to perpetuate its dogmas — ^than to search 
for living truths himself 
Thus he attempts too much — if he have one instinct of 
art in him — for in the effort to serve both nature and the 
"Master," he confounds the two — crowds and over works his 
picture, and utterly destroys all unity and directness of 
effect. 
The fact is, men are afraid of nature — so accustumed are 
they to the regalia of honor and of state, that her plainness 
repells them. They do not understand dignity or greatness, 
or nobility, divested of and separate from the " tricksey 
pomps" of "ribbons," "garters," gew gaws, &;c. 
They convey this morbid appetite into landscape uncon- 
sciously, and hence the horrid array of blazing pictures we 
find on the walls of our exhibitions. The scenes must be all 
Autumn — loaded with garish colors — trees like hay-ricks on 
fire ; or, Indian Summer — all haze — with red sunsets, like 
the flaming faces of market women from behind their Sun- 
