ABSTRACT
There is a pleasure in painting which none but painters know. In writing, one has to contend with the world; in painting, the painter has only to carry on a friendly strife with Nature. The hand and eye are equally employed. In tracing the commonest object, a plant or the stump of a tree, the painter learns something every moment. The painter perceives unexpected differences, and discovers likenesses where he/she looked for no such thing. Besides the exercise of the mind, painting exercises the body. It is a mechanical as well as a liberal art. Painting is not, like writing, what is properly understood by a sedentary employment. It requires not indeed a strong, but a continued and steady exertion of muscular power. Painting for a whole morning gives one as excellent an appetite for one's dinner.
