42 B Y- WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



spring, beside a brook, and see how many of 

 them will bear reading in the light and pres- 

 ence of nature. How tasteless become the 

 polished bits of conventional art when we at- 

 tempt to enjoy them in the open air, where the 

 violets grow, and the wild vine hangs its fes- 

 toons ! 



There is another test of the force and vital- 

 ity of nature's suggestions known to every ob- 

 servant artist. For instance, a sketch of some 

 out-door scene, made on the spot, will appear 

 to have scarcely any value so long as it can be 

 readily compared with the original; but no 

 sooner is the portfolio opened in the studio 

 than the sketch discloses, in a marked degree, 

 many of the subtlest beauties or peculiarities 

 of the living scene. How different in the case 

 of a sketch made from the flat ! How diluted 

 the power of nature becomes ! 



I was once enjoying a luncheon with a gay 

 sylvan party, when the earth served as table 

 and a sward of blue-grass as table-cloth. A 

 lady who gloried in her collection of rare hand- 

 painted china was serving tea to us in cups 

 worth more than their weight in gold ; and yet 

 when one of these chanced to be set down in 

 the midst of a tuft of wild violets it was so 

 dulled by contrast with the living blooms that 

 it really appeared coarse and crude. To study 

 nature is the surest way to a knowledge of 

 what art ought to be. Nature is the standard. 

 I have little respect for the judgment of the 

 critic who measures one man's work by that of 

 another. The main question, when any art- 

 work is to be critically considered should be, 

 Has it the symmetry, force, and vital beauty 

 of nature ? 



