DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18972#0351
letter in.] ON COLOUR AND COMPOSITION.
323
and ridiculous, and would be fit only for the
reasonably good ear of Bottom, as to explain why
we like sweetness, and dislike bitterness. The best
part of every great work is always inexplicable: it
is good because it is good; and innocently gracious,
opening as the green of the earth, or falling as the
dew of heaven.
But though you cannot explain them, you may
always render yourself more and more sensitive to
these higher qualities by the discipline which you
generally give to your character, and this especially
with regard to the choice of incidents; a kind of
composition in some sort easier than the artistical
arrangements of lines and colours, but in every sort
nobler, because addressed to deeper feelings.
For instance, in the " Datur Hora Quieti," the last
vignette to Eogers's Poems, the plough in the fore-
ground has three purposes. The first purpose is to
meet the stream of sunlight on the river, and make
it brighter by opposition; but any dark object what-
ever would have done this. Its second purpose is, by
its two arms, to repeat the cadence of the group of
323
and ridiculous, and would be fit only for the
reasonably good ear of Bottom, as to explain why
we like sweetness, and dislike bitterness. The best
part of every great work is always inexplicable: it
is good because it is good; and innocently gracious,
opening as the green of the earth, or falling as the
dew of heaven.
But though you cannot explain them, you may
always render yourself more and more sensitive to
these higher qualities by the discipline which you
generally give to your character, and this especially
with regard to the choice of incidents; a kind of
composition in some sort easier than the artistical
arrangements of lines and colours, but in every sort
nobler, because addressed to deeper feelings.
For instance, in the " Datur Hora Quieti," the last
vignette to Eogers's Poems, the plough in the fore-
ground has three purposes. The first purpose is to
meet the stream of sunlight on the river, and make
it brighter by opposition; but any dark object what-
ever would have done this. Its second purpose is, by
its two arms, to repeat the cadence of the group of