FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148  
149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>  
ur--and the midday sun was darting and glittering through the interstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of _chiaroscuro_ to a subject already defective in point and contrast--Eleanor was almost in despair. "Where's Jack?" said I, after condoling with her. "He tried the birches for ten minutes, and then he went up the stream to look for _algae_." At this moment Jack appeared. He came slowly towards us, looking at something in his hand. "Lend me your magnifying-glass, Eleanor," said he, when he had reached us. Eleanor unfastened it from her chatelaine, and Jack became absorbed in examining some water-weed in a dock-leaf. "What is it?" said we. "It's a new species, I believe. Look, Eleanor!" and he gave her the leaf and the glass with an almost pathetic anxiety of countenance. My opinion carried no weight in the matter, but Eleanor was nearly as good a naturalist as her mother. And she was inclined to agree with Jack. "It's too good to be true! But I certainly don't know it. Where did you find it?" "No, thank you," said Jack derisively. "I mean to keep the habitat to myself for the present. For _a very good reason_. Margery, my child, put that sketch of mine into the pocket of your block. (The paper is much about the size of your own!) It is going into the 'Household Album.'" We went home earlier than we had intended. Even the perseverance of Eleanor and Clement broke down under their ill-success. Jack was the only well-satisfied one of the party, and, with his usual good-nature, he tried hard to infect me with his cheerfulness. "I think," said I, looking dolefully at my sketch, "that a good deal of the fault must have been in my eyes. I suspect one can't see colours properly when one is feeling sick and giddy. But the glare of the sun was the worst. I couldn't tell red from green on my palette, so no wonder the fields and everything else looked all the same colour. And yet what provokes one is the feeling that an artist would have made a sketch of it somehow. The view is really beautiful." "And that is really beautiful," said Eleanor, pointing to the birch group and its background. "And what a mess I have made of it! I wish I'd stuck to pencil. And yet, as you say, an artist would have got a picture out of it." "I'll tell you what," said Jack, who was lying face downwards with my picture spread before him, "I believe that any one who knew the dodges, when he saw that everythi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148  
149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>  



Top keywords:
Eleanor
 

sketch

 

beautiful

 

feeling

 

artist

 
picture
 
suspect
 

nature

 
midday
 

infect


dolefully

 

satisfied

 
cheerfulness
 

success

 
earlier
 

intended

 
everythi
 
Household
 

dodges

 

perseverance


Clement

 

provokes

 

colour

 

looked

 

pencil

 

background

 

spread

 

couldn

 

properly

 

pointing


fields

 
palette
 

colours

 

reason

 

unfastened

 
reached
 

chatelaine

 
magnifying
 

slowly

 
absorbed

examining
 

species

 
interstices
 
appeared
 

effects

 

condoling

 
supplying
 

chiaroscuro

 
subject
 

contrast