Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/388

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with the rounded hills bounding our prospect on every hand. Now the hills would be a wonderful purple-gray in cloud shadow, anon a brilliant golden green as the great gleams of sunshine raked their sloping sides, lighting them up with a warm glory that hardly seemed of this world, so ethereal did they make the solid landscape look.

There is a charm of form, and there is also a charm of colour, less seldom looked for or understood; but when one can have the two at their best combined, as in this instance, then the beauty of a scene is a thing to be remembered, to make a mental painting of, to be recalled with a sense of refreshment on a dreary winter's day when the dark fog hangs thick and heavy like a pall over smoky London. P. G. Hamerton, who, if a poor painter, was an excellent critic, and a clever writer upon art (for, like Ruskin, he had a message to give), remarks, "In the Highlands of Scotland we have mountains, but no architecture; in Lincolnshire architecture, but no mountains." Well, I feel inclined to retort, Lincolnshire has the architecture—and the Wolds. Truly, the Wolds are not mountains, but picturesquely they will do as a background to architecture even better than mountains. Mountains resent being turned into a mere background to architecture; they are too big, too important, far too assertive; the Wolds are dreamy and distant,—so the very thing.

Many years ago, when they were less known, and little thought of or admired, I spoke of the Norfolk Broads as a land of beauty, worthy of the