mark the terminal line of each tree as is
done by Durer in Fig. 13., you will get a most useful memorandum of
their arrangement, and a very interesting drawing. Only observe in doing
this, you must not, because the procedure is a quick one, hurry that
procedure itself. You will find, on copying that bit of Durer, that
every one of his lines is firm, deliberate, and accurately descriptive
as far as it goes. It means a bush of such a size and such a shape,
definitely observed and set down; it contains a true "signalement" of
every nut-tree, and apple-tree, and higher bit of hedge, all round that
village. If you have not time to draw thus carefully, do not draw at
all--you are merely wasting your work and spoiling your taste. When you
have had four or five years' practice you may be able to make useful
memoranda at a rapid rate, but not yet; except sometimes of light and
shade, in a way of which I will tell you presently. And this use of
outline, note farther, is wholly confined to objects which have _edges_
or _limits_. You can outline line a tree or a stone, when it rises
against another tree or stone; but you cannot outline folds in drapery,
or waves in water; if these are to be expressed at all it must be by
some sort of shade, and therefore the rule that no good drawing can
consist throughout of pure outline remains absolute. You see, in that
woodcut of Durer's, his reason for even limiting himself so much to
outline as he has, in those distant woods and plains, is that he may
leave them in bright light, to be thrown out still more by the dark sky
and the dark village spire; and the scene becomes real and sunny only by
the addition of these shades.

[Illustration: FIG. 13.]

Understanding, then, thus much of the use of outline, we will go back to
our question about tree drawing left unanswered at page 60.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.]

[Illustration: FIG. 15.]

We were, you remember, in pursuit of mystery among the leaves. Now, it
is quite easy to obtain mystery and disorder, to any extent; but the
difficulty is to keep organisation in the midst of mystery. And you will
never succeed in doing this unless you lean always to the definite side,
and allow yourself rarely to become quite vague, at least through all
your early practice. So, after your single groups of leaves, your first
step must be to conditions like Figs. 14. and 15., which are careful
facsimiles of two portions of a beautiful woodcut of Durer's, the Fli