rofile, as you look at the whole tree, and Nature puts
her best composition into the profile arrangement. But the view from
above or below occurs not unfrequently, also, and it is quite necessary
you should draw it if you wish to understand the anatomy of the tree.
The difference between the two views is often far greater than you could
easily conceive. For instance, in Fig. 9, _a_ is the upper view and _b_
the profile, of a single spray of Phillyrea. Fig. 8 is an intermediate
view of a larger bough; seen from beneath, but at some lateral distance
also.

81. When you have done a few branches in this manner, take one of the
drawings you have made, and put it first a yard away from you, then a
yard and a half, then two yards; observe how the thinner stalks and
leaves gradually disappear, leaving only a vague and slight darkness
where they were; and make another study of the effect at each distance,
taking care to draw nothing more than you really see, for in this
consists all the difference between what would be merely a miniature
drawing of the leaves seen near, and a full-size drawing of the same
leaves at a distance. By full size, I mean the size which they would
really appear of if their outline were traced through a pane of glass
held at the same distance from the eye at which you mean to hold your
drawing. You can always ascertain this full size of any object by
holding your paper upright before you, at the distance from your eye at
which you wish your drawing to be seen. Bring its edge across the object
you have to draw, and mark upon this edge the points where the outline
of the object crosses, or goes behind, the edge of the paper. You will
always find it, thus measured, smaller than you supposed.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.]

82. When you have made a few careful experiments of this kind on your
own drawings, (which are better for practice, at first, than the real
trees, because the black profile in the drawing is quite stable, and
does not shake, and is not confused by sparkles of luster on the
leaves,) you may try the extremities of the real trees, only not doing
much at a time, for the brightness of the sky will dazzle and perplex
your sight. And this brightness causes, I believe, some loss of the
outline itself; at least the chemical action of the light in a
photograph extends much within the edges of the leaves, and, as it
were, eats them away, so that no tree extremity, stand it ever so still,
nor any other