aintains undiminished thickness, up to the
two shoots on the left, from the loss of which it suffers again
perceptibly. On the right, immediately above, is the stump of a very
large bough, whose loss reduces the trunk suddenly to about two-thirds
of what it was at the root. Diminished again, less considerably, by the
minor branch close to this stump, it now retains its diameter up to the
three branches, broken off just under the head, where it once more loses
in diameter, and finally branches into the multitude of head-boughs, of
which not one will be found tapering in any part, but losing themselves
gradually by division among their offshoots and spray. This is nature,
and beauty too.

Sec. 9. Boughs, in consequence of this law, _must_ diminish where they
divide. Those of the old masters often do not.

But the old masters are not satisfied with drawing carrots for boughs.
Nature can be violated in more ways than one, and the industry with
which they seek out and adopt every conceivable mode of contradicting
her is matter of no small interest. It is evident, from what we have
above stated of the structure of all trees, that as no boughs diminish
where they do not fork, so they cannot fork without diminishing. It is
impossible that the smallest shoot can be sent out of a bough without a
diminution of the diameter above it; and wherever a branch goes off it
must not only be less in diameter than the bough from which it springs,
but the bough beyond the fork must be less by precisely the quantity of
the branch it has sent off.[71] Now observe the bough underneath the
first bend of the great stem in Claude's Narcissus; it sends off four
branches like the ribs of a leaf. The two lowest of these are both quite
as thick as the parent stem, and the stem itself is much thicker after
it has sent off the first one than it was before. The top boughs of the
central tree, in the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, ramify in the same
scientific way.

Sec. 10. Boughs must multiply as they diminish. Those of the old masters
do not.

Sec. 11. Bough-drawing of Salvator.

But there are further conclusions to be drawn from this great principle
in trees. As they only diminish where they divide, their increase of
number is in precise proportion to their diminution of size, so that
whenever we come to the extremities of boughs, we must have a multitude
of sprays sufficient to make up, if they were united, the bulk of that
f