ssary. I have good hope, however, that enough
guidance is given in this work to prevent the occurrence of any serious
embarrassment; and I believe that the student who obeys its directions
will find, on the whole, that the best answer of questions is
perseverance; and the best drawing-masters are the woods and hills.

FOOTNOTES:

[198] If the student is fond of architecture, and wishes to know more of
perspective than he can learn in this rough way, Mr. Runciman (of 40
Accacia Road, St. John's Wood), who was my first drawing-master, and to
whom I owe many happy hours, can teach it him quickly, easily, and
rightly.

THE

ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.

LETTER I.

ON FIRST PRACTICE.

MY DEAR READER:

Whether this book is to be of use to you or not, depends wholly on your
reason for wishing to learn to draw. If you desire only to possess a
graceful accomplishment, to be able to converse in a fluent manner about
drawing, or to amuse yourself listlessly in listless hours, I cannot
help you: but if you wish to learn drawing that you may be able to set
down clearly, and usefully, records of such things as cannot be
described in words, either to assist your own memory of them, or to
convey distinct ideas of them to other people; if you wish to obtain
quicker perceptions of the beauty of the natural world, and to preserve
something like a true image of beautiful things that pass away, or which
you must yourself leave; if, also, you wish to understand the minds of
great painters, and to be able to appreciate their work sincerely,
seeing it for yourself, and loving it, not merely taking up the thoughts
of other people about it; then I _can_ help you, or, which is better,
show you how to help yourself.

Only you must understand, first of all, that these powers which indeed
are noble and desirable, cannot be got without work. It is much easier
to learn to draw well, than it is to learn to play well on any musical
instrument; but you know that it takes three or four years of practice,
giving three or four hours a day, to acquire even ordinary command over
the keys of a piano; and you must not think that a masterly command of
your pencil, and the knowledge of what may be done with it, can be
acquired without painstaking, or in a very short time. The kind of
drawing which is taught, or supposed to be taught, in our schools, in a
term or two, perhaps at the rate of an hour's practice a week, is not
drawing at all. It is