perhaps by pictures and descriptions as well as by her
recollections of English mountains and lakes. The attempt to
blend into a single picture a landscape actually seen and a
landscape only known at second-hand may perhaps account for the
lack of distinctness in her pictures. Her descriptions of scenery
are elaborate, and often prolix, but it is often difficult to
form a clear image of the scene. In her novels she cares for
landscape only as an effective background, and paints with the
broad, careless sweep of the theatrical scene-painter. In the
_Journeys_, where she depicts scenery for its own sake, her
delineation is more definite and distinct. She reveals an unusual
feeling for colour and for the lights and tones of a changing sea
or sky:

"It is most interesting to watch the progress of
evening and its effect on the waters; streaks of light
scattered among the dark, western clouds after the sun
had set, and gleaming in long reflection on the sea,
while a grey obscurity was drawing over the east, as
the vapours rose gradually from the ocean. The air was
breathless, the tall sails of the vessel were without
motion, and her course upon the deep scarcely
perceptible; while above the planet burned with steady
dignity and threw a tremulous line of light upon the
sea, whose surface flowed in smooth, waveless expanse.
Then other planets appeared and countless stars
spangled the dark waters. Twilight now pervaded air and
ocean, but the west was still luminous where one solemn
gleam of dusky red edged the horizon from under heavy
vapours."[37]