If you have ever watched an artist constructing with bits of cold stone a beautiful living picture you know that he works faithful...ly and carefully on the pattern from the wrong side and while he is working every inequality, every tint a little too dull is apparent to him as his picture grows, but he works on and on. And even when he finishes at last and looks down at the completed pattern he is not discouraged to see here a little crevice and there a little roughness, an open seam here, a tiny patch there where the bit of marble was too small. Now he pours his cement over it and smoothes [sic] it into every seam, and with faith puts his work to dry. Next day the pattern is turned and the perfect whole is given to view, needing only the polishing of a loving hand to make it ready to slip in place. So we should work faithfully on our pattern, cement it together with ourselves, and polish it with human kindness; and lo! the work slips into place seemingly a perfect whole.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have often thought that the fittest locality for a human dwelling was on the edge of the land, that there the constant lesson a...nd impression of the sea might sink deep into the life and character of the landsman, and perhaps impart a marine tint to his imagination. It is a noble word, that mariner,--one who is conversant with the sea. There should be more of what it signifies in each of us. It is a worthy country to belong to,--we look to see him not disgrace it. Perhaps we should be equally mariners and terraners, and even our Green Mountains need some of that sea-green to be mixed with them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nearer yet to town, you come to ... ground famous for the pranks of a demon not distinctly named in old mythology, who has acted a... prominent and astounding part in our New England life, and deserves, as much as any mythological character, to have his biography written one day; who comes first in the guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs and murders the whole family,--ââ¬âew-England Rum. But history must not yet tell the tragedies enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to assuage and lend an azure tint to them. Here the most indistinct and dubious tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the same, which tempered the traveller's beverage and refreshed his steed. Here then men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and went their ways again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal t...int, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the... intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue, and you can easily tel...l it from the white ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a mile off.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is green or violet, you can't even say... it's blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »