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 
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