them. And a very little practice, in pursuing this method, will place
the student in as quick a habit of effecting it, as of writing down
his thoughts, together with the immeasurable advantage of snatching from
Nature her faultless effects of chiaroscuro--let them be as fleeting as
they may--and the lights and shades of _our own minds_ will influence
the effect they have on the minds of others.

Is there not practical wisdom in commencing every day with the steady
effort to make as much of it as if it were to be our whole existence? If
we have duties to perform, in themselves severe and laborious, we may
enquire if there be not some way by which to invest them with pleasant
associations? How many men find their pleasure in what would be the
positive horror and torment of the indolent, whose inefficient and
shrinking spirit recoils from these tasks as insupportable burdens?

In exact proportion as you have cultivated your taste and education in
this, as in all other things, will be your happiness and enjoyment in
your productions.

In a work of this nature, tautology is not altogether unavoidable, as
that which occurs in one division of it, equally applies to another.

I shall revert to the subject of light and shade again, under the head
of its application to Colour.

ON COLOUR.

COLOUR, perhaps, is one of the most expressive languages we possess--the
easiest understood by all.

'Style in painting,' says Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'is, the same as in
writing, a power over materials, whether words or colours, by which
conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.

'When an opportunity offers, _paint_ your studies, instead of drawing
them. This will give you such a facility in using colours, that in time
they will arrange themselves under the pencil.

'If painting comprises both drawing and colouring, and if, by a short
struggle of resolute industry, the same expedition is attainable in
painting as in drawing on paper, I cannot see what objection can justly
be made to the practice, or why that should be done in parts which may
be done altogether.

'Of all branches of the Art, Colouring is the least mechanical.' We
cannot measure colour by lines as we can drawing.

Art is not a thing merely to be admired, and with which the spectator
has nothing to do, however much he may suppose it: he has perhaps,
unconsciously, as much to do with it as it may have to do with him. A
man, wholly regardless of art, will remember