“Look at the pictures by Bonington; cannot you see the sands glisten, and hear the waves? And the fishwife who is walking there, do we not know that as she steps the sands press white beneath her, to darken as the moisture re-asserts itself beneath her footfall, by the margin of the sea? And the sea-piece by Turner. There is the sting of the brine in it, the very sound of the wind in the rigging. And the picture by Constable. Isn’t Fuseli right when he exclaims, ‘Come, let me fetch my umbrella; I’m off to see the Constables,’ for isn’t the rain just about to be freed from that sagging cloud, that has those planes of blue behind it?
Turner.
APPROACH TO VENICE.
“And then the pictures by De Wint and Turner. So huge in design, so simple in mass, yet if one looks into them, one finds sheep, and cows, and tiny horses in the distance, towing barges along canals. And in some corner of foreground, deep woods, and white doves, simply swinging through the air. Or, perhaps, a man on a horse riding up a lawn, with greyhounds at his heels, or tall foxgloves in deep shadow. Then in Turner’s pictures, his Venice scenes; small figures getting into barges—just a dab of the brush, and a dot of pink for the head—and all the vast canal with the sun dipping into it. And towering ships, away in the haze.
“Or, again, early morning, and a fisherman putting out on a lake to fish. The sun is just getting up over the hills, where you know the deer are feeding, and everything is grey, and drowsy with dew. The men are so quiet, you can hear the dip of an oar, a murmur of voices, perhaps the clank of a can at the bottom of the boat, or a chain running out. Only these men are about, and a coot or two. The cottages on the hill are still asleep; they have all the quietness of early morning. And these men, they are two dots of black paint! These are the pictures with poetry in them. Yes, these—and one other.”
“Which is that?” asked Miss Ridge, listening prettily, but with her charming eyes roving the room.
“It is a picture by a man named Watts, after our time, doubtless,” said Robert Mayne; “it has its place here on these walls. It shows the descent of Diana to the sleeping Endymion. The lovely form conveys the arch of the crescent, the silver moon, and the brown earth.”
It is true Miss Ridge was interested; she was a woman who might coo soft, understanding little noises about a picture, but all the time be arranging her hair by the reflection in its glass. So Robert Mayne’s conversation was not altogether understood by her. Yet in herself, she was so entirely satisfactory, there was no immediate need for her to be anything else.
“It is for homely features to keep home;