Still, these pictures, it seems to me, cannot be considered fine works of Art, more than the mystical writing common to a certain class of minds in the United States can be called good writing.

A great work of Art demands a great thought, or a thought of beauty adequately expressed.
Neither in Art nor literature more than in life can an ordinary thought be made interesting because well dressed.

But in a transition state, whether of Art or literature, deeper thoughts are imperfectly expressed, because they cannot yet be held and treated masterly.
This seems to be the case with Turner.

He has got beyond the English gentleman's conventional view of Nature, which implies a _little_ sentiment and a _very_ cultivated taste; he has become awake to what is elemental, normal, in Nature,--such, for instance, as one sees in the working of water on the sea-shore.

He tries to represent these primitive forms.