VI 



OF PAINTING IN WATER-COLOURS 



IT is now a little less than a year since I followed 

 the making of a water-colour sketch from its 

 first rough pencil lines to its signature. The 

 young man who made it, my friendship for whom, 

 up to that moment, had never been clouded by 

 any reverence whatever, assumed wholly new 

 proportions in my sight. The air with which 

 he produced his materials, his Whatman board, 

 his brushes, his water-pot, his sponge and his worn 

 palette, glorified by the deposits from masterly 

 mixtures, his confidence as he began taking 

 measurements of the Ocean (by which we sat) 

 along his marvellously sharpened pencil, the ease 

 with which he roughed in his outlines, the vigour 

 of his attack upon the sky, his deft handling of 

 rocks and breakers, these things gave me food for 

 thought, "Is it, then," I reflected, "that this 

 adolescent has been enjoying up to now a con- 

 sideration at my hands totally inadequate to his 

 real parts? Is it possible that one whom I have 



