time, interpret to
you much for herself; that farther experience on your own part will make
some difficulties disappear; and that others will be removed by the
occasional observation of such artists' work as may come in your way.
Nevertheless, I will not close this letter without a few general
remarks, such as may be useful to you after you are somewhat advanced in
power; and these remarks may, I think, be conveniently arranged under
three heads, having reference to the drawing of vegetation, water, and
skies.

And, first, of vegetation. You may think, perhaps, we have said enough
about trees already; yet if you have done as you were bid, and tried to
draw them frequently enough, and carefully enough, you will be ready by
this time to hear a little more of them. You will also recollect that we
left our question, respecting the mode of expressing intricacy of
leafage, partly unsettled in the first letter. I left it so because I
wanted you to learn the real structure of leaves, by drawing them for
yourself, before I troubled you with the most subtle considerations as
to _method_ in drawing them. And by this time, I imagine, you must have
found out two principal things, universal facts, about leaves; namely,
that they always, in the main tendencies of their lines, indicate a
beautiful divergence of growth, according to the law of radiation,
already referred to;[226] and the second, that this divergence is never
formal, but carried out with endless variety of individual line. I must
now press both these facts on your attention a little farther.

You may perhaps have been surprised that I have not yet spoken of the
works of J. D. Harding, especially if you happen to have met with the
passages referring to them in "Modern Painters," in which they are
highly praised. They are deservedly praised, for they are the only works
by a modern draughtsman which express in any wise the energy of trees,
and the laws of growth, of which we have been speaking. There are no
lithographic sketches which, for truth of general character, obtained
with little cost of time, at all rival Harding's. Calame, Robert, and
the other lithographic landscape sketchers are altogether inferior in
power, though sometimes a little deeper in meaning. But you must not
take even Harding for a model, though you may use his works for
occasional reference; and if you can afford to buy his "Lessons on
Trees,"[227] it will be serviceable to you in various ways, and