The Love of Nature 



a hedge-row, or a little stretch of river-bank 

 — she would find at the end of the season 

 that she had gained new eyes. She would 

 see a thousand things she had never seen be- 

 fore, find beauty in many that before had 

 seemed ugly, and realize the difference be- 

 tween merely ^Miking" Nature and truly 

 appreciating it. It would not matter if all 

 her studies were failures and were torn up in 

 disgust as fast as they were finished. She 

 would have attained a great end, achieved a 

 real success ; for she would have enlarged 

 her own powers of enjoyment to the sweeten- 

 ing and dignifying of all the rest of her life. 

 Much amateur sketching is done in this coun- 

 try every summer, but I fear it is not often 

 done in this spirit. The aim is to produce 

 pretty pictures, not to cultivate the painter's 

 own intelligence. And while the aim gen- 

 erally remains unattained, intelligence is 

 scarcely increased ; for, as the prettiness of 

 the sketch has been the ruling motive, a sub- 

 ject has most often been chosen because it 

 was easy to do, not because it was particu- 

 larly interesting in itself, and it has been 

 superficially looked at, not lovingly studied. 

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