If a painter had a lifetime to spare, and loved this sort of
material,--the willows, hillsides, and winding stream,--he would grow
old and weary before he could paint it all; and yet no two of his
compositions need be alike. I have tied my boat under these same willows
for ten years back, and I have not yet exhausted one corner of this
neglected pasture.

There may be those who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and
selecting of flies, the joining of rods, the prospective comfort in high
water-boots, the creel with the leather strap,--every crease in it a
reminder of some day without care or fret,--all this may bring the flush
to the cheek and the eager kindling of the eye, and a certain sort of
rest and happiness may come with it; but--they have never gone
a-sketching! Hauled up on the wet bank in the long grass is your boat,
with the frayed end of the painter tied around some willow that offers a
helping root. Within a stone's throw, under a great branching of gnarled
trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you through the
interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your white umbrella.
Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the easel put up, and you
set your palette. The critical eye with which you look over your
brush-case and the care with which you try each feather point upon your
thumb-nail are but an index of your enjoyment.

Now you are ready. You loosen your cravat, hang your coat to some rustic
peg in the creviced bark of the tree behind you, seize a bit of charcoal
from your bag, sweep your eye around, and dash in a few guiding
strokes. Above is a turquoise sky filled with soft white clouds; behind
you the great trunks of the many-branched willows; and away off, under
the hot sun, the yellow-green of the wasted pasture, dotted with patches