A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.
I ought to respect myself for my friends' sake, and my children's. It is time, at fifty-six, to begin, at least, to know oneself, - and I do know what I am not, and your regard for me has at least awakened me to believe in the possibility that I may yet make some impression with my "light" - my "dews" - my "breezes" - my bloom and freshness, - no one of which qualities has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.
Again rejoicing Nature sees Her robe assume its vernal hues Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, All freshly steep'd in the morning dews.
Fame grows like a tree if it have the principle of growth in it; the accumulated dews of ages freshen its leaves.
I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke' [his painting 'Stoke-by-Nayland', circa 1835] What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o'clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed part of the picture, under 'Hedge row elms and hillocks green. ' Then the plough, cart, horse, gate, cows, donkey, &c. are all good paintable material for the foreground, and the size of the canvas sufficient to try one's strength, and keep one at full collar.
Even the facts of science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are. . . rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.
Light - dews - breezes - bloom - and freshness; not one of which. . . has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.
How gracious those dews of solace that over my senses fall At the clink of the ice in the pitcher the boy brings up the hall.
The dews of the evening most carefully shun; Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
