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 “liking” 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. 
321 
