AMATEUR ARTISTS 313 



girl may do all this alone. I do not want anything to be 

 expected of the instruction I recommend beyond the 

 smoothing of the path. It will avail nothing unless it 

 teaches her to depend in the long run on herself, her own 

 industry, and her own exertions. A certain amount of 

 technical skill in the use of pencil and colours, certain 

 rules of composition, the knowledge of how to stretch 

 paper, prepare materials, and set about a drawing, may 

 be imparted by a teacher. This saves aU the time and 

 vexation it would cost to learn these things alone. But 

 though we may learn from another to some extent how 

 to think, no one in the world can tell us what to think. 

 The faculty and the will must be suppHed by the learner. 

 No teacher can instil them, though he may remove 

 obstacles and help to quicken the growth of the powers 

 within. Unless a girl have it in her to feel, in however 

 small a degree, the beauty of the light summer cirrus 

 which floats above her head, or to know how to look with 

 joy into the glowing heart of a flower, no books and no 

 teaching will ever give it to her. Without an inborn love 

 of natural beauty, no one wiU ever care enough about 

 drawing to persevere ; with it, no one can fail to make 

 progress, however slight. Beginners should, I think, 

 never destroy their drawings ; they should be kept, not 

 in conceit, but as a proof of progress. Every drawing, 

 however, should be made with a definite purpose, and it 

 is best — as a rule — for each one to draw what she most 

 fancies ; the result will then probably not only be more 

 satisfactory, but more original. But to begin sketch after 

 sketch and study after study, and then give them up or 

 throw them away half finished, is a form of self- 

 indulgence most fatal to progress. It debilitates the 

 intelligence and weakens the moral fibre, which alone 

 conquers difiiculties. 



On the other hand, it is not uncommon for un- 



