'
'Still you will allow the beauty of a bare rock, a down, a church
spire, a sheet or line of horizontal water,--their necessity to the
completion of a landscape. I recollect well having the value of a
stern straight line in Nature brought home to me, when, during a long
ride in the New Forest, after my eye had become quite dulled and
wearied with the monotonous softness of rolling lawns, feathery
heath, and rounded oak and beech woods, I suddenly caught sight of
the sharp peaked roof of Rhinefield Lodge, and its row of tall stiff
poplar-spires, cutting the endless sea of curves. The relief to my
eye was delicious. I really believe it heightened the pleasure with
which I reined in my mare for a chat with old Toomer the keeper, and
the noble bloodhound who eyed me from between his master's legs.'
'I can well believe it. Simple lines in a landscape are of the same
value as the naked parts of a richly-clothed figure. They act both
as contrasts and as indications of the original substratum of the
figure; but to say that severe simplicity is the highest ideal is
mere pedantry and Manicheism.
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