DRAWING FOR PRINTERS.
Director of the Chautauqua Society of Fine Arts.
PREFACE.
THEauthor has no doubt but that many captiousreaders, upon opening this book, will find itpuzzling. They will think that it does not presentthe subject in an orderly fashion. They would muchprefer to have us suggest one month’s study of outlines,and then finish with the subject; then twomonths’ study of shading, which we would maintaincovered the whole ground; and they would wish usto separate with equal positiveness the whole studyof drawing into distinct portions. To these criticismsI reply with the following parable:
Mrs. Smith, the mother of a large family, distressedby the bigness of the physician’s bill (or rather byher husband’s complaints of the same), procured atthe druggist’s a case of homœopathic medicine, witha booklet directing its dispensation, which wouldenable her to act as her family physician, and bringingit home perused it with delight, as she foundevery ailment which her children were heir to extensivelydescribed therein—chicken-pox, croup, diphtheriaand scarlet fever were alphabetically set down,and their proper remedy clearly named. When sheretired she staid awake, almost hoping to hear littleJohnny cough or Mary toss in her crib, that shemight prove her knowledge of symptomatology, andthe efficacy of the drugs.
Alas, a month’s experience brought with it asource of embarrassment which she had not anticipatedon procuring her book. True, she had learnedit by heart with ease, and knew that for a slightattack of fever one drop of aconite and two of belladonnashould be given on alternate days, and thatfor an incipient attack of croup she should giveone drop of aconite every half hour, “which might beadministered more frequently if the case showed symptomsof rapid development.” Alas, the difficulty didnot arise from any omission in the book directionsfor applying remedies, but the puzzling point wasto distinguish in nature between the symptoms ofcroup, for instance, and those of an ordinary cold.Was Johnny’s sonorous barking due to a real croupythroat, or was it the natural formation of his vocalorgans which gave so ominous a tone to a coughthat might be only the result of his wading in therain barrel the morning before? Was Tommy’s callingfor “a wink of water” no less than six times ina night due to a prospective fever, or was it theresult of loneliness because he had for the first timebeenput in the spare room, and wanted