Nature breathes peace and geniality
into almost every human heart.
"John Thelwall," says Coleridge, "had something very good about him. We
were sitting in a beautiful recess in the Quantocks when I said to him
'Citizen John, this is a fine place to talk treason in!' 'Nay, Citizen
Samuel,' replied he, 'it is rather a place to make us forget that there
is any necessity for treason!'"
Leigh Hunt, who always looks on nature with the eye of a true painter
and the imagination of a true poet, has represented with delightful
force and vividness some of those accidents of light and shade that
diversify an English meadow.
RAIN AND SUNSHINE IN MAY.
"Can any thing be more lovely, than the meadows between the rains of
May, when the sun smites them on the sudden like a painter, and they
laugh up at him, as if he had lighted a loving cheek!
I speak of a season when the returning threats of cold and the resisting
warmth of summer time, make robust mirth in the air; when the winds
imitate on a sudden the vehemence of winter; and silver-white clouds are
abrupt in their coming down and shadows on the grass chase one another,
panting, over the fields, like a pursuit of spirits. With undulating
necks they pant forward, like hounds or the leopard.
See! the cloud is after the light, gliding over the country like the
shadow of a god; and now the meadows are lit up here and there with
sunshine, as if the soul of Titian were standing in heaven, and playing
his fancies on them.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41