Looked out for landscapes this evening; but although all around one is
lovely, how little of it will work up into a picture! that is, without
great additions and alterations, which is a work of too much time to
suit my purpose just now. I want little subjects that will paint off at
once. How despairing it is to view the loveliness of nature towards
sunset, and know the impossibility of imitating it!--at least in a
satisfactory manner, as one could do, would it only remain so long
enough. Then one feels the want of a life's study, such as Turner
devoted to landscape; and even then what a botch is any attempt to
render it! What wonderful effects I have seen this evening in the
hay-fields! The warmth of the uncut grass, the greeny greyness of the
unmade hay in furrows or tufts with lovely violet shadows, and long
shades of the trees thrown athwart all, and melting away one tint into
another imperceptibly; and one moment more a cloud passes and all the
magic is gone. Begin to-morrow morning, all is changed: the hay and the
reapers are gone most likely; the sun too, or if not, it is in quite the
opposite quarter, and all that _was_ loveliest is all that is tamest
now, alas! It is better to be a poet; still better a mere lover of
Nature; one who never dreams of possession....
_Ford Madox Brown._