The world is wide; no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world. - John Constable

My canvas soothes me into forgetfulness of the scene of turmoil and folly — and worse — of the scene around me. Every gleam of sunshine is blighted to me in the art at least. Can it therefore be wondered at that I paint continual storms? "Tempest o'er tempest roll'd" — still the "darkness" is majestic.

Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?

The mysterious monument of Stonehenge, standing remote on a bare and boundless heath, as much unconnected with the events of past ages as it is with the uses of the present, carries you back beyond all historical records into the obscurity of a totally unknown period.