composition somewhat awkwardly.

Now, although the lines indicative of action are not always quite so
manifest in other things as in trees, a little attention will soon
enable you to see that there _are_ such lines in everything. In an old
house roof, a bad observer and bad draughtsman will only see and draw
the spotty irregularity of tiles or slates all over; but a good
draughtsman will see all the bends of the under timbers, where they are
weakest and the weight is telling on them most, and the tracks of the
run of the water in time of rain, where it runs off fastest, and where
it lies long and feeds the moss; and he will be careful, however few
slates he draws, to mark the way they bend together towards those
hollows (which have the future fate of the roof in them), and crowd
gradually together at the top of the gable, partly diminishing in
perspective, partly, perhaps, diminished on purpose (they are so in most
English old houses) by the slate-layer. So in ground, there is always
the direction of the run of the water to be noticed, which rounds the
earth and cuts it into hollows; and, generally, in any bank, or height
worth drawing, a trace of bedded or other internal structure besides.
The figure 20. will give you some idea of the way in which such facts
may be expressed by a few lines. Do you not feel the depression in the
ground all down the hill where the footsteps are, and how the people
always turn to the left at the top, losing breath a little, and then how
the water runs down in that other hollow towards the valley, behind the
roots of the trees?

Now, I want you in your first sketches from nature to aim exclusively at
understanding and representing these vital facts of form; using the
pen--not now the steel, but the quill--firmly and steadily, never
scrawling with it, but saying to yourself before you lay on a single
touch,--"_That_ leaf is the main one, _that_ bough is the guiding one,
and this touch, _so_ long, _so_ broad, means that part of it,"--point or
side or knot, as the case may be. Resolve always, as you look at the
thing, what you will take, and what miss of it, and never let your hand
run away with you, or get into any habit or method of touch. If you want
a continuous line, your hand should pass calmly from one end of it to
the other, without a tremor; if you want a shaking and broken line, your
hand should shake, or break off, as easily as a musician's finger shakes
or stops on a note: only r