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Doctor and Patient by S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell
page 110 of 111 (99%)
pupil is to use are words, and words only. Constant dissatisfaction with
the little they can tell us is the fate of all who use them. The
sketcher, the great word-painter, and even the poet feels this when,
like Browning, he seems so to suffer from their weakness as to be
troubled into audacious employment of the words that will not obey his
will, torment them as he may. Yet, as my pupil goes on, she will find
her vocabulary growing, and will become more and more accurate in her
use and more ingenious in her combination of words to give her meaning.
As she learns to feel strongly--for she will in time--her love will give
her increasing power both to see and to state what she sees, because
this gentle passion for nature in all her moods is like a true-love
affair, and grows by what it feeds upon.

When we come to sketch in words the rare and weird effects, the storm,
the sunsets that seem not of earth, the cascade, or the ravage of the
"windfall," it is wise not to be lured into fanciful word-painting, and
the temptation is large. Yet the simplest expression of facts is then
and for such rare occasions the best, and often by far the most
forceful.

I venture, yet again, to give from a note-book of last year a few lines
as to a sunset. I was on a steam-yacht awaiting the yachts which were
racing for the Newport cup.

August 6, time, sunset; level sea; light breeze; fire-red sun on
horizon; vast masses of intensely-lighted scarlet clouds; a broad track
of fiery red on water; three yachts, with all sail set, coming over this
sea of red towards us. Their sails are a vivid green. The vast mass of
reds and scarlets give one a strange sense of terror as if something
would happen. I could go on to expand upon "this color such as shall be
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