a Holbein drawing, and to copy
these well you want an easel.

For this small work any kind of frame with a sheet of glass in it, and a
ledge to rest your bit of glass on and a leg to stand out behind, will
do, and by all means get it made (fig. 23); but do not spend too much on
it, for later on you will want a bigger and more complicated thing,
which will be described in its proper place--that is to say, when we
come to it; and we shall come to it when we come to deal with work made
up of a number of pieces of glass, as all windows must be.

[Illustration: FIG. 23.]

This that you have now, not being a window but a bit of glass to
practise on, what I have described above will do for it.

_A note to be always industrious and to work with all your might._--I
advise you to put this work on an easel; but this is not the way such
work is usually done;--where the work is done as a task (alas, that it
could ever be so!) it is held listlessly in the left hand while touched
with the right; but no artist can afford to be at this disadvantage, or
at any disadvantage.

Fancy a surgeon having to hold the limb with one hand while he uses the
lancet with the other, or an astronomer, while he makes his measurement,
bunglingly moving his telescope by hand while he pursues his star,
instead of having it driven by the clock!

You cannot afford to be less keen or less in earnest, and you want both
hands free--ay! more than this--your whole body free: you must not be
lazy and sit glued to your stool; you must get up and walk backwards and
forwards to look at your work. Do you think art is so easy that you can
afford to saunter over it?

Do, I beg you, dear reader, pay attention to these words; for it is true
(though strange) that the hardest thing I have found in teaching has
been to get the pupil to take the most reasonable care not to hamper and
handicap himself by omitting to have his work comfortably and
conveniently placed and his tools and materials in good order. You shall
find a man going on painting all day, working in a messing, muddling
way--wasting time and money--because his pigment has not been covered up
when he left off work yesterday, and has got dusty and full of "hairs";
another will waste hour after hour, cricking his neck and squinting at
his work from a corner, when thirty seconds and a little wit would move
his work where he would get a good light and be comfortable; or he will
work with bad tools and grumble,