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brilliant colours. No doubt she knows when to be splendid and 
when soberer and tenderer tints are more appropriate. But no 
art can rival the colours of Nature. Those of heraldry, said 
Hamerton, are “good enough for the splendour of lordly pride, 
but not good enough for one wreath of perishing cloud, nor one 
feather in a wild duck’s wing.” 
In the life of Sir W. Napier, by his daughter, we are told 
that Sir Edward Codrington once, in a conversation at sea, 
criticised the colouring of Turner, and denied that such brilliant 
hues ever occurred in Nature : — 
“ My father,’' she says, “ looked round, and, pointing with 
his hand to the sea towards the east, said, ‘ Look here.’ . . 
As every little ripple rose it was a triangle of burning crimson 
sheen from the red sunset light upon it, of a brilliancy not even 
Turner himself could equal in his most highly coloured picture. 
The whole broad sea was a blaze of those burning crimson 
triangles, all playing into each other, and just parting and show- 
ing their forms again as the miniature billows rose and fell. 
‘ Well, well ! ’ said Sir Edward, ‘ I suppose I must give up the 
reds, but what will you say to his yellows ? Surely they are 
beyond everything ! ’ ‘ Look there ! ’ said my father, pointing to 
the sea on the western side of our boat between us and the 
setting sun — every triangular wave there, as the ripples rose, 
was in a yellow flame, as bright as the other was red, and 
glittering like millions of topaz lights. Sir Edward Codrington 
laughed kindly and admiringly, and said, ‘ Well ! I must give 
in — I have no more to say; you and Turner have observed 
Nature more closely than I have.’ ” 
Madame de Sevigne, in one of her charming letters, tells her 
daughter that she had gone down into the country to spend 
the beautiful days of autumn, and say adieu to the leaves. 
“ They are still on the trees, and have only changed colour ; 
instead of being green they have the colours of sunrise, and of 
several kinds of sunrise ; they form a rich and magnificent 
brocade of gold. Too often,” she continues, “ we look at such 
scenes as if we were walking blind ; not knowing where we 
go, or why we are going ; taking for evil that which is good, 
and for good that which is evil, and living really in absolute 
ignorance.” 
Every season of the year and every hour has a beauty of its 
own, and yet now and then some effect seems to stand out with 
special brilliance or loveliness — 
“ It seemed as if the hour were one 
Sent from bejond the skies. 
Which scattered from beyond the sun 
A light of Paradise.” — Shelley. 
By day we cannot admire too much the brilliance and magnifi- 
cence of the sun, which, moreover, seems to grow greater and 
more beautiful as it approaches the horizon, and yet when it has 
finally set, when the moon rises in all her exquisite beauty, and 
