Now here is a chance to do a little bit of Art-criticism
quite unexpensively. Discontented young gentlemen murmur about the
education of this people being too practical, unaesthetic, and all that,
and sigh for the culture which a foreign land only can give. But a man
who has no eye for Nature will hardly learn to love her at second-hand
through the mediation of canvas and colors. I should like very much to
be able to walk into a Turner Gallery once a week; but, for all that, I
would not give up a Connecticut Valley sunset, such as last summer could
be had for the looking at. Not Turner, even, could paint those level
shadows, all interfused with trembling light, that filled the hollows
of the hills across the river, and brought out their wavy contour, and
showed the depth and distance of the valley opening miles away. Could he
throw athwart the dark mirror of the sleeping water in the gorge, which
led the imprisoned river stealthily to the sea, the gliding snows of the
sails rosy-white that stole swan-like from behind the bluffs? Could he
bring down the rainbow till its hither abutment rested on the centre of
the stream in a transparent mist of driving rain, while its keystone was
lost in the stooping cloud above? Art is good, as well as long; but time
is also fleeting, and, not being millionnaires, with the luxury of a run
across the Atlantic at command, let us make what we can out of what we
have.
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