Doctor and Patient by S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell
page 110 of 111 (99%)
page 110 of 111 (99%)
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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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