244 TEE OPEN AIR 



city-bred, and can never have the feeling of the 

 country, however fond they may be of it. 



In those fields of which I was writing the other 

 day, I found an artist at work at his easel ; and a 

 pleasant nook he had chosen. His brush did its 

 work with a steady and sure stroke that indicated 

 command of his materials. He could delineate 

 whatever he selected with technical skill at all 

 events. He had pitched his easel where two hedges 

 formed an angle, and one of them was full of oak- 

 trees. The hedge was singularly full of "bits" — 

 bryony, tangles of grasses, berries, boughs half- 

 tinted and boughs green, hung as it were with 

 pictures like the wall of a room. Standing as near 

 as I could without disturbing him, I found that the 

 subject of his canvas was none of these. It was that 

 old stale and dull device of a rustic bridge spanning 

 a shallow stream crossing a lane. Some figure stood 

 on the bridge — the old, old trick. He was filling up 

 the hedge of the lane with trees from the hedge, and 

 they were cleverly executed. But why drag them 

 into this fusty scheme, which has appeared in every 

 child's sketch-book for fifty years? Why not have 

 simply painted the beautiful hedge at hand, purely 

 and simply, a hedge hung with pictures for any one 

 to copy? The field in which he had pitched his 

 easel is full of fine trees and good ''effects." But 

 no; we must have the ancient and effete old story. 

 This is not all the artist's fault, because he must 

 in many cases paint what he can sell; and if his 

 public will only buy effete old stories, he cannot 

 help it. Still, I think if a painter did paint that 



