the time, how to do this and how to do that; but absolutely
different in the texture of their minds and in the result that they
wished to obtain, so far as the pictures and drawings by which they
were well known to the public are concerned.

"What we made, or rather, I should say, what we wished to note, was
merely a memorandum of a passing effect upon the hills that lay
before us. We had no idea of expressing ourselves, or of studying in
any way the subject for any future use. We merely had the intention
to note this affair rapidly, and we had all used the same words to
express to each other what we liked in it. There were big clouds
rolling over hills, sky clearing above, dots of trees and water and
meadow-land below us, and the ground fell away suddenly before us.
Well, our three sketches were, in the first place, different in
shape; either from our physical differences, or from a habit of
drawing certain shapes of a picture, which itself usually
indicates--as you know, or ought to know--whether we are looking far
or near. Two were oblong, but of different proportions; one was more
nearly a square; the distance taken in to the right and left was
smaller in the latter case, and, on the contrary, the height up and
down--that is to say, the portion of land beneath and the portion of
sky above--was greater. In each picture the clouds were treated with
different precision and different attention. In one picture the open
sky above was the main intention of the picture. In two pictures the
upper sky was of no consequence--it was the clouds and the mountains
that were insisted upon. The drawing was the same, that is to say,
the general make of things; but each man had involuntarily looked
upon what was most interesting to him in the whole sight; and though
the whole sight was what he meant to represent, he had unconsciously
preferred a beauty or an interest of things different from what his