s Original Place--Museums to be Approached
with Caution--Methodical Memoranda--Some Examples--Assimilation of
Ideas Better than Making Exact Copies.

In holiday time, and as other opportunity arises, be sure to visit some
old building, be it church or mansion. In this way you will make
acquaintance with many a fine specimen of old work which will set your
fancy moving. In the one there may be a carved choir-screen or bench
ends, in the other a fireplace or table. The first sight of such things
in the places and among the surroundings for which they were designed,
is always an eventful moment in the training of a carver, because the
element of surprise acts like a tonic to the mind by arousing its
emulative instincts. It is by seeing such things in their proper home
and associations that the best lessons are learned. One sees in that
way, for instance, _why_ the tool marks left by the old carvers on their
work look more effective than smoothly perfect surfaces, when associated
with the rough timbers of the roof, or the uneven surface of the
plastered wall. One sees, too, the effect of time and friction in the
polished surfaces of bench ends, rubbed and dusted by countless hands
until they have become smooth to the eye and touch, and a mental note is
made to avoid sharp or spiky work in anything that is likely to be
within reach of the fingers. In this way a certain balance is given to
the judgment in proportioning to each piece of work its due share of
labor, and we come away with a fixed determination to pay more attention
in future to breadth of design and economy of actual carving, a problem
which no carver finds easy, but which must be faced if wasted work is
not to be his only reward.

[Illustration: FIG. 46.]

In museums, too, we shall find many useful lessons, although there we
see things huddled together in a distracting fashion which demands great
wariness of selection. The great point to be observed in making our
notes for future reference is, that each sketch should contain some
memorandum of a special quality, the one which attracted us at the time
of making it. One may be made for sake of a general arrangement, another
to remind us of some striking piece of detail or peculiarity of
execution. The drawings need not be elaborate or labored, provided they
make clear the points they were intended to record. Thus Fig. 46 is a
sketch which is meant as a memorandum of a lively representation of
birds