42 B Y- WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES, 



spring, beside a brook, and see how many of 

 them will bear reading in the light and pres 

 ence of nature. How tasteless become the 

 polished bits of conventional art when we at 

 tempt to enjoy them in the open air, where the 

 violets grow, and the wild vine hangs its fes 

 toons ! 



There is another test of the force and vital 

 ity of nature s suggestions known to every ob 

 servant artist. For instance, a sketch of some 

 out-door scene, made on the spot, will appear 

 to have scarcely any value so long as it can be 

 readily compared with the original; but no 

 sooner is the portfolio opened in the studio 

 than the sketch discloses, in a marked degree, 

 many of the subtlest beauties or peculiarities 

 of the living scene. How different in the case 

 of a sketch made from the flat ! How diluted 

 the power of nature becomes ! 



I was once enjoying a luncheon with a gay 

 sylvan party, when the earth served as table 

 and a sward of blue-grass as table-cloth. A 

 lady who gloried in her collection of rare hand- 

 painted china was serving tea to us in cups 

 worth more than their weight in gold ; and yet 

 when one of these chanced to be set down in 

 the midst of a tuft of wild violets it was so 

 dulled by contrast with the living blooms that 

 it really appeared coarse and crude. To study 

 nature is the surest way to a knowledge of 

 what art ought to be. Nature is the standard. 

 I have little respect for the judgment of the 

 critic who measures one man s work by that of 

 another. The main question, when any art 

 work is to be critically considered should be, 

 Has it the symmetry, force, and vital beauty 

 of nature ? 



