preserved with the utmost diligence; for there is such an infinite
number of forms and actions of things that the memory is incapable of
preserving them, and therefore you should keep those (sketches) as your
patterns and teachers.

_Leonardo._


LXVI

Two men stop to talk together: I pencil them in detail, beginning at the
head, for example; they separate and I have nothing but a fragment on my
paper. Some children are sitting on the steps of a church; I begin,
their mother calls them; my sketch-book becomes filled with tips of
noses and locks of hair. I make a resolution not to go home without a
whole figure, and I try for the first time to draw in mass, to draw
rapidly, which is the only possible way of drawing, and which is to-day
one of the chief faculties of our moderns. I put myself to draw in the
winking of an eye the first group that presents itself; if it moves on I
have at least put down the general character; if it stops, I can go on
to the details. I do many such exercises, and have even gone so far as
to cover the lining of my hat with lightning sketches of opera-ballets
and opera scenery.

_Corot._


LXVII

There is my model (the artist pointed to the crowd which thronged a