Page:Journey Round my Room by Xiavier de Maistre trans. Henry Attwell.djvu/40

22 human face, strives to imitate in his works the wonderful effects of nature! Happy, too, is the painter who is led by love of landscape into solitary paths, and who can make his canvas breathe the feeling of sadness with which he is inspired by a gloomy wood or a desert plain. His productions imitate and reproduce nature. He creates new seas and dark caverns into which the sun has never peered. At his command, coppices of evergreens spring into life, and the blue of heaven is reflected on his pictures. He darkens the air, and we hear the roar of the storm. At another time he presents to the eye of the wondering beholder the delightful plains of ancient Sicily: startled nymphs flee the pursuit of a satyr through the bending reeds; temples of stately architecture raise their grand fronts above the sacred forest that surrounds them. Imagination loses itself among the still paths of this ideal country.