only the work of Nature,--but Nature in all her primeval power, as
in the legendary frostless morning of creation. Man here seems
to bear scarcely more relation to the green life about him than
the insect; and the results of human effort seem impotent by
comparison son with the operation of those vast blind forces which
clothe the peaks and crown the dead craters with impenetrable forest.
The air itself seems inimical to thought,--soporific, and yet pregnant
with activities of dissolution so powerful that the mightiest
tree begins to melt like wax from the moment it has ceased to
live. For man merely to exist is an effort; and doubtless in the
perpetual struggle of the blood to preserve itself from
fermentation, there is such an expenditure of vital energy as
leaves little surplus for mental exertion.

... Scarcely less than poet or philosopher, the artist, I fancy,
would feel his helplessness. In the city he may find wonderful
picturesqueness to invite his pencil, but when he stands face to
face alone with Nature he will discover that he has no colors!
The luminosities of tropic foliage could only be imitated in
fire. He who desires to paint a West Indian forest,--a West
Indian landscape,--must take his view from some great height,
through which the colors come to his eye softened and subdued by
distance,--toned with blues or purples by the astonishing
atmosphere.

... It is sunset as I write these lines, and there are
witchcrafts of color. Looking down the narrow, steep street
opening to the bay, I see the motionless silhouette of the
steamer on a perfectly green sea,--under a lilac sky,--against a
prodigious orange light.