And then, as the road wound round some point, one's eye could fall
down, down, through the abyss of perpendicular wood, tree below tree
clinging to and clothing the cliff, or rather no cliff; but
perpendicular sheet of deep wood sedge, and broad crown ferns,
spreading their circular fans.--But there is no describing them, or
painting them either.--And then to see how the midday sunbeams leapt
past one down the abyss, throwing out here a grey stem by one point
of burnished silver, there a hazel branch by a single leaf of glowing
golden green, shooting long bright arrows down, through the dim, hot,
hazy atmosphere of the wood, till it rested at last upon the dappled
beach of pink and grey pebbles, and the dappled surge which wandered
up and down among them, and broke up into richer intricacy with its
chequer-work of woodland shadows, the restless net of snowy foam.'
'You must be fresh from reading Mr. Ruskin's book, Claude, to be able
to give birth to such a piece of complex magniloquence as that last
period of yours.'
'Why, I saw all that, and ten thousand things more; and yet do you
complain of me for having tried to put one out of all those thousand
things into words? And what do you mean by sneering at Mr.
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