e lecturer.

[Side note: _Treatment of Detail_]

Do not be over-conscious of detail. It is a common weakness of the
architectural draughts man to be too sophisticated in his pictorial
illustration. He knows so much about the building that no matter how
many thousand yards away from it he may stand he will see things
that would not reveal themselves to another with the assistance
of a field-glass. He is conscious of the fact that there are just
so many brick courses to the foot, that the clapboards are laid
just so many inches to the weather, that there are just so many
mouldings in the belt course,--that everything in general is very,
very mathematical. This is not because his point of view is too
big, but because it is too small. He who sees so much never by any
chance sees the _whole building_. Let him try to think broadly of
things. Even should he succeed in forgetting some of these factitious
details, the result will still be stiff enough, so hard is it to
re-adjust one's attitude after manipulating the T-square. I strongly
recommend, as an invaluable aid toward such a re-adjustment, the
habit of sketching from Nature,--from the figure during the winter
evenings, and out of doors in summer.

[Illustration: FIG. 44 C. D. M.]

The beginner is apt to find his effects at first rather hard and
mechanical at the best, because he has not yet attained that freedom
of handling which ignores unimportant details, suggests rather
than states, gives interesting variations of line and tone, and
differentiates textures. A good part of the unpleasantness of effect
will undoubtedly be found to be due to a mistaken regard for accuracy
of statement, individual mouldings being lined in as deliberately
as in the geometrical office drawings, and not an egg nor a dart
slighted. Take, for example, the case of an old Colonial building
with its white cornice, or any building with white trimmings. See
the effect of such a one in an "elevation" where all the detail is
drawn, as in "A," Fig. 44. Observe that the amount of ink necessary
to express this detail has made the cornice darker than the rest
of the drawing, and yet this is quite the reverse of the value
which it would have in the actual building, see "B." To obtain
the true value the different mouldings which make up the cornice
should be merely suggested. Where it is not a question of local
color, however, this matter of elimination is largely subject to
the exigencies of reprodu