(1) There is a passage in Werter which contains a very pleasing
illustration of this doctrine, and is as follows:--
'About a league from the town is a place called Walheim. It is very
agreeably situated on the side of a hill: from one of the paths which
leads out of the village, you have a view of the whole country; and
there is a good old woman who sells wine, coffee, and tea there: but
better than all this are two lime-trees before the church, which spread
their branches over a little green, surrounded by barns and cottages. I
have seen few places more retired and peaceful. I send for a chair and
table from the old woman's, and there I drink my coffee and read Homer.
It was by accident that I discovered this place one fine afternoon: all
was perfect stillness; everybody was in the fields, except a little boy
about four years old, who was sitting on the ground, and holding between
his knees a child of about six months; he pressed it to his bosom
with his little arms, which made a sort of great chair for it; and
notwithstanding the vivacity which sparkled in his eyes, he sat
perfectly still. Quite delighted with the scene, I sat down on a plough
opposite, and had great pleasure in drawing this little picture of
brotherly tenderness. I added a bit of the hedge, the barn-door, and
some broken cart-wheels, without any order, just as they happened
to lie; and in about an hour I found I had made a drawing of great
expression and very correct design without having put in anything of my
own. This confirmed me in the resolution I had made before, only to
copy Nature for the future. Nature is inexhaustible, and alone forms
the greatest masters. Say what you will of rules, they alter the true
features and the natural expression.'
(2) It is at present covered with a thick slough of oil and varnish
(the perishable vehicle of the English school), like an envelope of
goldbeaters' skin, so as to be hardly visible.
(3) Men in business, who are answerable with their fortunes for
the consequences of their opinions, and are therefore accustomed to
ascertain pretty accurately the grounds on which they act, before they
commit themselves on the event, are often men of remarkably quick and
sound judgements. Artists in like manner must know tolerably well what
they are about, before they can bring the result of their observations
to the test of ocular demonstration.
(4) The famous Schiller used to say, that he found the great happiness
of life, after all, to consist in the discharge of some mechanical duty.
(5) The rich _impasting_ of Titian and Giorgione combines something of
the advantages of both these styles, the felicity of the one with the
carefulness of the other, and is perhaps to be preferred to either.