y, is an example of all that is wrong. It is a representation of
the forms of shaken and disturbed soil, such as we should see here and
there after an earthquake, or over the ruins of fallen buildings. It has
not one contour nor character of the soil of nature, and yet I can
scarcely tell you why, except that the curves repeat one another, and
are monotonous in their flow, and are unbroken by the delicate angle
and momentary pause with which the feeling of nature would have touched
them, and are disunited; so that the eye leaps from this to that, and
does not pass from one to the other without being able to stop, drawn on
by the continuity of line; neither is there any undulation or furrowing
of watermark, nor in one spot or atom of the whole surface, is there
distinct explanation of form to the eye by means of a determined shadow.
All is mere sweeping of the brush over the surface with various ground
colors, without a single indication of character by means of real shade.

Sec. 14. Importance of these minor parts and points.

Sec. 15. The observance of them is the real distinction between the master
and the novice.

Let not these points be deemed unimportant; the truths of form in common
ground are quite as valuable, (let me anticipate myself for a moment,)
quite as beautiful, as any others which nature presents, and in lowland
landscape they present us with a species of line which it is quite
impossible to obtain in any other way,--the alternately flowing and
broken line of mountain scenery, which, however small its scale, is
always of inestimable value, contrasted with the repetitions of organic
form which we are compelled to give in vegetation. A really great artist
dwells on every inch of exposed soil with care and delight, and renders
it one of the most essential, speaking and pleasurable parts of his
composition. And be it remembered, that the man who, in the most
conspicuous part of his foreground, will violate truth with every stroke
of the pencil, is not likely to be more careful in other parts of it;
and that in the little bits which I fix upon for animadversion, I am not
pointing out solitary faults, but only the most characteristic examples
of the falsehood which is everywhere, and which renders the whole
foreground one mass of contradictions and absurdities. Nor do I myself
see wherein the great difference lies between a master and a novice,
except in the rendering of the finer truths, of which