These old stories, when one has heard them once, are not very exhilarating, but they all have truth in their well of words. It is pleasant to turn from them, and merely to repeat the titles of some of the sketches mentioned before, sounding as beautiful as they look, and to glance at such a delicate drawing as the 'View on the Moselle,' and to follow the river feeling for its level between the flushed hills.
And it is pleasant, too, to know that the time has now come to consider the loveliest of the 'unfinished' oils, the pictures painted for his own delight in moments of exhilaration, that were revealed to the public in 1906. It is probable that the most delicate and evanescent of them were painted at intervals between this year and 1838. Unsigned, unnamed, undated, it is impossible to give them a certain date, and really it does not much matter. Turner painted them; the nation has them: that is all we need to know.
[PART SEVEN]
1833-1845
FROM A CONSIDERATION OF THE 'UNFINISHED OILS TO' RAIN, STEAM AND SPEED' AND THE LAST SKETCH-BOOKS
