hite
umbrella and a three-legged stool are the sum of my studio
appointments.

Another reason is that, outside of this ability to paint rapidly
out-of-doors, I know so little of the many processes attendant upon
the art of the painter that both my advice and my criticism would be
worthless to even the youngest of the painters to-day. Again, I work
only in two mediums, water-color and charcoal. Oil I have not touched
for many years, and then only for a short time when a student under
Swain Gifford (and this, of course, many, many years ago), who taught
me the use and value of the opaque pigment, which helped me greatly in
my own use of opaque water-color in connection with transparent color
and which was my sole reason for seeking the help of his master hand.

A further venture is to kindle in your hearts a greater love for and
appreciation of what a superbly felt and exactly rendered outdoor
sketch stands for--a greater respect for its vitality, its life-spark;
the way it breathes back at you, under a touch made unconsciously,
because you saw it, recorded it, and then forgot it--best of all
because you let it alone; my fervent wish being to transmit to you
some of the enthusiasm that has kept me young all these years of my
life; something of the joy of the close intimacy I have held with
nature--the intimacy of two old friends who talk their secrets over
each with the other; a joy unequalled by any other in my life's
experience.

There may be those who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and
selecting of flies, the jointing of rods, the prospective comfort in
high water-boots, the creel with the leather strap, every crease in it
a reminder of some day without care or fret--all this may bring the
flush to the cheek and the eager kindling of the eye, and a certain
sort of rest and happiness may come with it; but--they have never gone
a-sketching! Hauled up on the wet bank in the long grass is your boat,
with the frayed end of the painter tied around some willow that offers
a helping root. Within a stone's throw, under a great branching of
gnarled trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you
through the interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your
white umbrella. Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the
easel put up, and you set your palette. The critical eye with which
you look over your brush case and the care with which you try each
feather point upon your thumbnail are but an in