The “Sunrise At Pleasant View.”

7 Albermarle St., Boston.

My dear Mrs. Eddy:—What a beautiful painting your “Sunrise at Pleasant View” is! Its whole tone shows so unmistakably that it comes from a pure heart. I want so much to thank you for showing me in this lovely description that it takes goodness to really appreciate and express beauty. How intelligent, too, Truth makes one in all directions! I am an artist; and I am sure that no one who makes landscape painting a vocation could improve upon the arrangement and composition of color you have given us; it is certainly technical perfection. If it were not that I understand a little of Christian Science, I should think it impossible for any one but a practical artist to attain such artistic Truth.

It is vain for us to hope to delineate the beautiful without living lives of goodness and beauty; but when that Mind shall be in us which was also in the “one altogether lovely,” our every thought will be beautifully expressed, be it in words, colors, or notes.

Your “Sunrise,” dear Mrs. Eddy, is such a perfect example of this, that I felt it would help my spiritual growth to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to you.

Very faithfully yours,
Albert Horstmeier.
December 21, 1896.

“Who shall describe the brave splendor of a November sky that this morning burst through the lattice for me, on my bed? According to terrestrial calculations, above the horizon, in the east, there rose one rod of rainbow hues, crowned with an acre of eldritch ebony. Little by little this topmost pall, drooping over a deeply dazzling sunlight, softened, grew gray, then gay, and glided into a glory of mottled marvels. Fleecy, faint, fairy blue and golden flecks came out on a background of cerulean hue; while the lower lines of light kindled into gold, orange, pink, crimson, violet; and diamond, topaz, opal, garnet, turquoise, and sapphire spangled the gloom in celestial space as with the brightness of His glory. Then thought I, What are we, that He who fashions forever such forms and hues of heaven, should move our brush or pen to paint frail fairness or to weave a web of words that glow with gladdening gleams of God, so unapproachable, and yet so near and full of radiant relief in clouds and darkness!”

“Sunrise At Pleasant View” from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, Page 376-377