ard and false, and will assuredly be either too round or too square,
however often you alter it, merely passing from the one fault to the
other and back again, the real cloud striking an inexpressible mean
between roundness and squareness in all its coils or battlements. I
speak at present, of course, only of the cumulus cloud: the lighter
wreaths and flakes of the upper sky cannot be outlined;--they can only
be sketched, like locks of hair, by many lines of the pen. Firmly
developed bars of cloud on the horizon are in general easy enough, and
may be drawn with decision. When you have thus accustomed yourself a
little to the placing and action of clouds, try to work out their light
and shade, just as carefully as you do that of other things, looking
exclusively for examples of treatment to the vignettes in Rogers's Italy
and Poems, and to the Liber Studiorum, unless you have access to some
examples of Turner's own work. No other artist ever yet drew the sky:
even Titian's clouds, and Tintoret's, are conventional. The clouds in
the "Ben Arthur," "Source of Arveron," and "Calais Pier," are among the
best of Turner's storm studies; and of the upper clouds, the vignettes
to Rogers's Poems furnish as many examples as you need.

151. And now, as our first lesson was taken from the sky, so, for the
present, let our last be. I do not advise you to be in any haste to
master the contents of my next letter. If you have any real talent for
drawing, you will take delight in the discoveries of natural loveliness,
which the studies I have already proposed will lead you into, among the
fields and hills; and be assured that the more quietly and
single-heartedly you take each step in the art, the quicker, on the
whole, will your progress be. I would rather, indeed, have discussed the
subjects of the following letter at greater length, and in a separate
work addressed to more advanced students; but as there are one or two
things to be said on composition which may set the young artist's mind
somewhat more at rest, or furnish him with defense from the urgency of
ill-advisers, I will glance over the main heads of the matter here;
trusting that my doing so may not beguile you, my dear reader, from your
serious work, or lead you to think me, in occupying part of this book
with talk not altogether relevant to it, less entirely or

Faithfully yours,