Shall it be the bit of garden underneath
my window, with the tangle of pinks and roses, and the cabbages
growing appetisingly beside the sweet-williams, the woodbine
climbing over the brown stone wall, the wicket-gate, and the cherry-
tree with its fruit hanging red against the whitewashed cottage?
Ah, if I could only paint it so truly that you could hear the drowsy
hum of the bees among the thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows
in the distance, and feel that it is midsummer in England! That
would indeed be truth, and that would be art. Shall I paint the
Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips and the flax, his head
as yellow and his eyes as blue as the flowers themselves; or that
bank opposite the gate, with its gorse bushes in golden bloom, its
mountain-ash hung with scarlet berries, its tufts of harebells
blossoming in the crevices of rock, and the quaint low clock-tower
at the foot? Can I not paint all these in the full glow of summer-
time in my secret heart whenever I open the door a bit and admit its
life-giving warmth and beauty? I think I can, if I can only quit
dreaming.
I wonder how the great artists worked, and under what circumstances
they threw aside the implements of their craft, impatient of all but
the throb of life itself?
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