I shall now conclude my remarks with a quotation from Du Fresnoy's "Art of Painting," bearing directly on my subject and that of light and shade:--
"Permit not two conspicuous lights to shine With rival radiance in the same design; But yield to one alone the power to blaze, And spread th' extensive vigour of its rays; There where the noblest figures are displayed, Thence gild the distant parts and lessening fade; As fade the beams which Phoebus from the east Flings vivid forth to light the distant West, Gradual those vivid beams forget to shine, So gradual let thy pictured lights decline."
Dear Mr. Editor,--I have often troubled you with some of my ideas and opinions concerning the progress and status of photography, and you have pretty often transferred the same to the columns of the _Photographic News_, and troubled your readers in much the same manner. This time, however, I am going to tell you a secret--a family secret. They are always more curious, interesting, and important than other secrets, state secrets and Mr. McLachlan's photographic secret not excepted. But to my subject: "_The_ Secret." Well, dear Mr. Editor, you know that my vocations have been rather arduous for some time past, and I feel that a little relaxation from pressing cares and anxieties would be a great boon to me. You know, also, that I am a great lover of nature, almost a stickler for it, to the exclusion of _prejudicial art_. And now that the spring has come and winter has fled on the wings of the fieldfares and woodcocks--that's Thomas Hood's sentiment made seasonable--I fain would leave the pent-up city, where the colour of the sky can seldom be seen for the veil of yellow smoke which so constantly obscures it, and betake myself to the country, and inhale the fresh breezes of early spring; gladden my heart and eyes with a sight of the bright blue sky, the glistening snowdrops and glowing yellow crocuses, and regale my ears and soul with the rich notes of the thrush and blackbird, and the earliest song of the lark at the gates of heaven.
It is a pleasant thing to be able to shake off the mud and gloom of a winter's sojourn in a town, in the bright, fresh fields of the country, and bathe your fevered and enfeebled body in the cool airs of spring, as they come gushing down from the hills, or across the rippling lake, or dancing sea. I always had such a keen relish for the country at all seasons of the year, it is often a matter of wonder to me that I ever could bring my mind to the necessity of living in a town. But bread and butter do not grow in hedgerows, though "bread and cheese" do; still the latter will not support animal life of a higher order than grub or caterpillars. "There's the rub." The mind is, after all, the slave of the body, for the mind must bend to the requirements of the body; and, as a man cannot live by gazing at a "colt's foot," and if he have no appetite for horseflesh, he is obliged to succumb to his fate, and abide in a dingy, foggy, slushy, and bewildering world of mud, bricks, and mortar, instead of revelling in the bright fields, fresh air, and gushing melodies which God created for man, and gave man senses to enjoy his glorious works.