uch more lovely when it has been laid on with a dash of the
brush, and left to dry in its own way, than when it has been dragged
about and disturbed; so that it is always better to let the edges and
forms be a _little_ wrong, even if one cannot correct them afterwards,
than to lose this fresh quality of the tint. Very great masters in
water-colour can lay on the true forms at once with a dash, and _bad_
masters in water-colour lay on grossly false forms with a dash, and
leave them false; for people in general, not knowing false from true,
are as much pleased with the appearance of power in the irregular blot
as with the presence of power in the determined one; but _we_, in our
beginnings, must do as much as we can with the broad dash, and then
correct with the point, till we are quite right. We must take care to be
right, at whatever cost of pains; and then gradually we shall find we
can be right with freedom.

I have hitherto limited you to colour mixed with two or three
teaspoonfuls of water; but in finishing your light and shade from the
stone, you may, as you efface the edge of the palest coat towards the
light, use the colour for the small touches with more and more water,
till it is so pale as not to be perceptible. Thus you may obtain a
_perfect_ gradation to the light. And in reinforcing the darks, when
they are very dark, you may use less and less water. If you take the
colour tolerably dark on your brush, only always liquid (not pasty), and
dash away the superfluous colour on blotting-paper, you will find that,
touching the paper very lightly with the dry brush, you can, by repeated
touches, produce a dusty kind of bloom, very valuable in giving depth to
shadow; but it requires great patience and delicacy of hand to do this
properly. You will find much of this kind of work in the grounds and
shadows of William Hunt's drawings.[212]

As you get used to the brush and colour, you will gradually find out
their ways for yourself, and get the management of them. Nothing but
practice will do this perfectly; but you will often save yourself much
discouragement by remembering what I have so often asserted,--that if
anything goes wrong, it is nearly sure to be refinement that is wanting,
not force; and connexion, not alteration. If you dislike the state your
drawing is in, do not lose patience with it, nor dash at it, nor alter
its plan, nor rub it desperately out, at the place you think wrong; but
look if there are no