high mathematics, and even then the nature of particular curves, as
given by the brush, would be scarcely demonstrable; and I am the less
disposed to take much trouble about it, because I think that the
persons who are really fond of these works are almost beyond the reach
of argument." The celebrated Mrs Partington once endeavoured, at
Sidmouth, to dispose of these "curves," and failed; and we suspect a
stronger reason than the incapacity of his readers for our author's
thus disposing of the subject. We believe the world would not give a
pin's head for all the seas that ever might be painted upon these
mathematical curves; and that, in painting, even a graduate's "high
mathematics" are but a very low affair. But let us enliven the reader
with something really high--and here is, in very high-flown prose,
part of a description of a waterfall; and it will tell him a secret,
that in the midst of these fine falls, nature keeps a furnace and
steam-engine continually at work, and having the fire at hand, sends
up rockets--if you doubt--read:--"And how all the hollows of that foam
burn with green fire, like so much _shattering chrysoprase_; and how,
ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray
leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind,
and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through
the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue
of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky
through white rain-cloud, while the shuddering iris stoops in
tremulous stillness over all, fading and flashing alternately through
the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among
the thick golden leaves, which toss to and fro in sympathy with the
wild water, their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of
loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again
upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away." "Satque superque
satis"--we cannot go on. There is nothing like calling things by their
contraries--it is truly startling. Whenever you speak of water, treat
it as fire--of fire, _vice versa_, as water; and be sure to send them
all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look
into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find
to come from χρυσος gold, and πρασον a leek, and means a precious
stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine"--the
reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine. But there
is a discovery--"I believe, when you have stood by this for half an
hour, you will have discovered that there is something more in nature
than has been given by Ruysdaël." You will indeed--if this be nature!
But, alas, what have we not to undergo--to discover what water is, and
to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that
he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo
any thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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