they put
something there from some other sketch; and proceed to inferior detail
in the same manner, taking care always to put white stones near black
ones, and purple colors near yellow ones, and angular forms near round
ones;--all being as simply a matter of recipe and practice as cookery;
like that, not by any means a thing easily done well, but still having
no reference whatever to "impressions on the mind."

Sec. 9. But the artist who has real invention sets to work in a totally
different way. First, he receives a true impression from the place
itself, and takes care to keep hold of that as his chief good; indeed,
he needs no care in the matter, for the distinction of his mind from
that of others consists in his instantly receiving such sensations
strongly, and being unable to lose them; and then he sets himself as far
as possible to reproduce that impression on the mind of the spectator of
his picture.

Now, observe, this impression on the mind never results from the mere
piece of scenery which can be included within the limits of the picture.
It depends on the temper into which the mind has been brought, both by
all the landscape round, and by what has been seen previously in the
course of the day; so that no particular spot upon which the painter's
glance may at any moment fall, is then to him what, if seen by itself,
it will be to the spectator far away; nor is it what it would be, even
to that spectator, if he had come to the reality through the steps which
Nature has appointed to be the preparation for it, instead of seeing it
isolated on an exhibition wall. For instance, on the descent of the St.
Gothard, towards Italy, just after passing through the narrow gorge
above Faido, the road emerges into a little breadth of valley, which is
entirely filled by fallen stones and debris, partly disgorged by the
Ticino as it leaps out of the narrower chasm, and partly brought down
by winter avalanches from a loose and decomposing mass of mountain on
the left. Beyond this first promontory is seen a considerably higher
range, but not an imposing one, which rises above the village of Faido.
The etching, Plate 20, is a topographical outline of the scene, with the
actual blocks of rock which happened to be lying in the bed of the
Ticino at the spot from which I chose to draw it. The masses of loose
debris (which, for any permanent purpose, I had no need to draw, as
their arrangement changes at every flood) I have not drawn,