The sky is thought of as a clear, high, material dome, the clouds as separate bodies suspended beneath it; and in consequence, however delicate and exquisitely removed in tone their skies may be, you always look at them, not through them. Now if there be one characteristic of the sky more valuable or necessary to be rendered than another, it is that which Wordsworth has given in the second book of the Excursion:
"The chasm of sky above my head
Is Heaven's profoundest azure; no domain
For fickle, short-lived clouds, to occupy,
Or to pass through; but rather an abyss
In which the everlasting stars abide,
And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt
The curious eye to look for them by day."
"The chasm of sky above my head
Is Heaven's profoundest azure; no domain
For fickle, short-lived clouds, to occupy,
Or to pass through; but rather an abyss
In which the everlasting stars abide,
And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt
The curious eye to look for them by day."
...
And if you look intensely at the pure blue of a serene sky, you will see that there is a variety and fulness in its very repose. It is not flat dead colour, but a deep, quivering, transparent body of penetrable air, in which you trace or imagine short falling spots of deceiving light, and dim shades, faint veiled vestiges of dark
vapour."
.........
"The appearance of mist or whiteness in the blue of the sky is thus a circumstance which more or less accompanies sunshine, and which, supposing the quantity of vapour constant, is greatest in the brightest sunlight. When there are no clouds in the sky, the whiteness, as it affects the whole sky equally, is not particularly noticeable. But when there are clouds between us and the sun, the sun being low, those clouds cast shadows along and through the mass of suspended vapour. Within the space of these shadows, the vapour, as above stated, becomes transparent and invisible, and the sky appears of a pure blue. But where the sunbeams strike, the vapour becomes visible in the form of the beams, occasioning those radiating shafts of light which are one of the most valuable and constant accompaniments of a low sun. The denser the mist, the more distinct and sharp-edged will these rays be; when the air is very clear, they are mere vague, flushing, gradated passages of light; when it is very thick, they are keen-edged and decisive in a high degree. "
vapour."
.........
"The appearance of mist or whiteness in the blue of the sky is thus a circumstance which more or less accompanies sunshine, and which, supposing the quantity of vapour constant, is greatest in the brightest sunlight. When there are no clouds in the sky, the whiteness, as it affects the whole sky equally, is not particularly noticeable. But when there are clouds between us and the sun, the sun being low, those clouds cast shadows along and through the mass of suspended vapour. Within the space of these shadows, the vapour, as above stated, becomes transparent and invisible, and the sky appears of a pure blue. But where the sunbeams strike, the vapour becomes visible in the form of the beams, occasioning those radiating shafts of light which are one of the most valuable and constant accompaniments of a low sun. The denser the mist, the more distinct and sharp-edged will these rays be; when the air is very clear, they are mere vague, flushing, gradated passages of light; when it is very thick, they are keen-edged and decisive in a high degree. "
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