68 Language Through Nature 



delightful hours he spent sharing the adventures of 

 the Tin Soldier, traveling with the Ugly Duckling, 

 or living in the depths of the pleasant forest with 

 the discontented Fir-Tree. And when he lifted his 

 eyes from the pages of the book and looked out of 

 the window down the quaint street of the little 

 Dutch village, it seemed to him as if he were look- 

 ing into fairyland. When he walked out into the 

 quiet country, where the great windmills stood, 

 and large-eyed cows and flocks of sheep grazed in 

 the peaceful meadows by the canals, it seemed to 

 the little dreamer as if fairyland lay all about him. 



Seeing and loving the beautiful things around 

 him made the boy long to make pictures that 

 would express the beauty that he saw and loved. 

 He began to draw when a small lad, and he tells 

 us that he spent his fifteenth birthday out in the 

 meadows, making pictures of cows. 



The boy's name was Anton Mauve. His family 

 thought making pictures a great waste of time, but 

 the boy was determined to be an artist. For years 

 he had no teacher of drawing, but he learned to 

 draw skill full) 7 ' by going into the fields and woods 

 and making pictures of trees, of sheep and cattle, 

 and of men at work. 



