268 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



them, day after day, could ensure. Here is 

 a description, by his brother, of one of Millais' 

 early works of this kind : ''I think, perhaps, 

 the most beautiful background ever painted by 

 my brother is to be found in his picture of ' The 

 Woodman's Daughter ' — a copse of young 

 oaks standing in a tangle of bracken and un- 

 trodden underwood, every plant graceful in 

 its virgin splendour. Notice the exquisitely 

 tender greys in the bark of the young oak in 

 the foreground, against which the brilliantly 

 clothed lordling is leaning. Every touch in 

 the fretwork tracery all about it has been 

 caressed by a true lover of his art, for in these, 

 his glorious early days, one can see that not 

 an iota was slurred over, but that every beauty 

 in nature met with its due appreciation at his 

 hands. Eye cannot follow the mysterious in- 

 terlacing of all the wonderful green things that 

 spring up all about, where every kind of wood- 

 growth seems to be striving to get the upper 

 hand and to reach the sunlight first, where 

 every leaf and tendril stands out in bold relief" 

 This is characteristic of all Millais' landscape 

 painting in the days of his Pre-Raphaelite 

 fervour. 



