elessness--Importance of Clean Cutting.

It is curious to imagine what the inside of a young enthusiast's head
must be like when he makes his first conscious step toward artistic
expression. The chaotic jumbles of half-formed ideas, whirling about in
its recesses, produce kaleidoscopic effects, which to him look like the
most lovely pictures. If he could only learn to put them down! let him
but acquire the technical department of his art, and what easier than to
realize those most marvelous dreams. Later in his progress it begins to
dawn upon him that this same technical department may not be so very
obedient to his wishes; it may have laws of its own, which shall change
his fairy fancies into sober images, not at all unlike something which
has often been done before by others. But let the young soul continue to
see visions, the more the better, provided they be of the right sort. We
shall in the meantime ask him to curb his imagination, and yield his
faculties for the moment to the apparently simple task of realizing a
leaf or two from one of the trees in his enchanted valley.

With the student's kind permission we shall, while these lessons
continue, make believe that teacher and pupil are together in a
class-room, or, better still, in a country workshop, with chips flying
in all directions under busy hands.

I must tell you then, that the first surprise which awaits the beginner,
and one which opens his eyes to a whole series of restraints upon the
freedom of his operations, lies in the discovery that wood has a decided
grain or fiber. He will find that it sometimes behaves in a very
obstinate manner, refusing to cut straight here, chipping off there, and
altogether seeming to take pleasure in thwarting his every effort. By
and by he gets to know his piece of wood; where the grain dips and
where it comes up or wriggles, and with practise he becomes its master.
He finds in this, his first technical difficulty, a kind of blessing in
disguise, because it sets bounds to what would otherwise be an
infinitely vague choice of methods.

We shall now take a piece of yellow pine, free from knots, and planed
clean all round. The size may be about 12 ins. long by 7 ins. wide. We
shall fix this to the bench by means of two clamps or one clamp and a
screwed block at opposite corners. Now we are ready to begin work, but
up to the present we have not thought of the design we intend executing,
being so intent upon the tools and