There was landscape enough here for any budding Turners, but we two had
still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher
peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in
the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of
moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your
modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of
that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his
masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff
prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a
work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but
beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.
[Illustration: THE IPEK PASS IN WINTER.]
But it became difficult even for us to admire landscape, for breakfast
had disappeared within us, and lunch seemed far away, so once more
recourse to the "compressed luncheon." There are three stages in the
taste of the "Tabloid.
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