of the mallet will often make a
better curve than if the same is attempted without its aid.

It will be well now to procure the remainder of the set of twenty-four
tools if you have not already got them, as they will be required for the
foliage we are about to attempt. The deep gouges are especially useful:
having two different sweeps on each tool, they adapt themselves to
hollows which change in section as they advance.

Fig. 32 contains very little foliage, such as there is being disposed in
small diamond-shaped spaces, sunk in the face of the doors, and a small
piece on the bracket below. All this work should be of a very simple
character, definite in form and broad in treatment.

[Illustration: FIG. 31. _Half_]

[Illustration: FIG. 32. _Half_]

Fig. 33 is more elaborate, but on much the same lines of design varied
by having a larger space filled with groups of leaves. Fig. 34 gives the
carving to a larger scale; in it the oak-leaves are shown with raised
veins in the center, the others being merely indicated by the gouge
hollows. There is some attempt in this at a more natural mode of
treating the foliage. While such work is being carved, it is well to
look now and then at the natural forms themselves (oak and laurel in
this case) in order to note their characteristic features, and as a
wholesome check on the dangers of mannerism.

It is a general axiom founded upon the evidence of past work, and a
respect for the laws of construction in the carpenter's department, that
when foliage appears in panels divided by plain spaces, it should never
be made to look as if it grew _from one panel into the other_, with the
suggestion of boughs passing behind the solid parts. This is a
characteristic of Japanese work, and may, perhaps, be admirable when
used in delicate painted decorations on a screen or other light
furniture, but in carvings it disturbs the effect of solidity in the
material, and serves no purpose which can not be attained in a much
better way.

[Illustration: CARVING IN PANELS OF FIG 33 FIG. 34.]

Expedients have been invented to overcome the difficulty of making a
fresh start in each panel, one of which is shown in Fig. 34, where the
beginning of the bough is hidden under a leaf. It is presumable that the
bough _may_ go on behind the uncarved portions of the board to reappear
in another place, but we need not insist upon the fancy, which loses all
its power when attention is called to it, like riddle