Page 323

323

March.

p.361 4 pp of Review for March

March 1.
Thurs.

A grander scene than our bay by
moonlight can hardly be conceived. It
is in fact more dreamlike and supernatural
than any combination of earthly
features. To approach it on canvass would
be an impossible task. When the moon
is nearly full and so opposed [encroached on] by
the encroaching dawn [lingering twilight]as to mingle their
double lights, the resulting tint is a
peculiar leaden ash - dull and cold.
Throw now such an atmosphere upon the
gnarled craggy hills of our bay, let
it crawl step by step up the terrace
let it
smear the big fiord with daubed
shadows of [lead?] colour, and then go
over the great sea of ice with the same
miserable neutral tint - let it be - a palpable
something, a coloured gas. Imagine
a world bathed not in yellow chlorine
or sulphuretted hydrogen, but in a
saturated yet transparent fluid of ashen
lead. Over such a ground work
as I have often described for Rensselaer
Harbour, throw such a mantle, and
then place in the midst of it a bright
intense moon. Let it light every crag
edge or ice spire and spread out
though every valley and fiord, and
finally let it print upon the snow the
fantastic profiles of our hilly back
ground. The result will be a chaotic
inconceivable landscape, utterly inorganic
to the senses and to the eye without
form and void. I come down from deck
with the feelings of a man who has
looked upon an [unfinished] world.
unfinished by the hand of the Creator.

March
Friday 2.

Petersen begins to be uneasy at
the absence of game immediately [mis?]