Underneath lie fallen leaves, and the brown brake
rises to our knees as we thread the forest paths." [3]
Nay, every day gives us a succession of glorious pictures in never-ending
variety. It is remarkable how few people seem to derive any pleasure from
the beauty of the sky. Gray, after describing a sunrise--how it began with
a slight whitening, just tinged with gold and blue, lit up all at once by
a little line of insufferable brightness which rapidly grew to half an
orb, and so to a whole one too glorious to be distinctly seen--adds, "I
wonder whether any one ever saw it before. I hardly believe it." [4]
No doubt from the dawn of poetry, the splendors of the morning and evening
skies have delighted all those who have eyes to see. But we are especially
indebted to Ruskin for enabling us more vividly to realize these glorious
sky pictures. As he says, in language almost as brilliant as the sky
itself, the whole heaven, "from the zenith to the horizon, becomes one
molten, mantling sea of color and fire; every block bar turns into massy
gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and
purple, and scarlet, and colors for which there are no words in language,
and no ideas in the mind--things which can only be conceived while they
are visible; the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting through it
all, showing here deep and pure, and lightness; there, modulated by the
filmy, formless body of the transparent vapor, till it is lost
imperceptibly in its crimson and gold.
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