Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Progress depends on a general brain power, and is not so surely proportioned to effort as the sanguine and the clever are apt to believe. It is unfortunately quite possible for amateurs to spend a great deal of time over their drawings, to take a real interest in the pursuit, and yet to achieve but small, very small, results. Such failure is sometimes due to circumstances and to pre- ventable causes. The most common of them is the constant interruption to which all home work, and especially women's work, is liable. The curious selfish- ness in this matter of even the best of mothers often immensely surprises me. It is hard indeed to convince parents and relations that women have any right to the undisturbed use of any portion of their time. I think a great deal of that desire, so commonly displayed now, for girls to leave their homes and undertake some work, has been brought about by this want of realisation of the necessity of quiet, if work is to be done. These inter- ruptions, so often quite needless, not only cause an immense loss of time, but are actually a great hindrance AMATEUR ARTISTS 315 to improvement in art. It is always difficult, often almost impossible, to take up work again in the same spirit in which it was laid down. The threads are broken, and cannot be joined together again, to say nothing of the intense annoyance of finding the subject moved, the colour-box upset, or the water spilt. The power of working, in spite of such drawbacks, can be cultivated, especially if it is possible to set up a table either in the pupil's own bed-room, or if some disused room can be handed over to her, where no one touches her things but herself. As a compromise to the undesirableness of leaving home altogether, these difficulties may very well be met, if one or two amateurs club together and hire a suitable room elsewhere outside their own homes. It might also be possible to get the loan of a room in the house of a young married woman who is the mistress of her own time, where all materials remain undisturbed, and where the surroundings are not annoying or distracting. Un- papered walls, simply whitewashed, a plain deal table or two, a few pieces of cheap pottery, are to be procured at the cost of a very few shillings, a bunch of leaves or a handful of Poppies or Marigolds giving the touch of colour which is dear to the soul of the most incipient artist. Besides the advantage to the work of quiet and seclusion, it is to many women both a rest and a stimulus to go out to their work daily, as men do. Another point which I would beg may be remembered is that water-colours are far more suitable to amateurs than oils. The use of oils encourages all those defects of slovenliness and carelessness, speed and showy display, to which amateurs are liable. A bad sketch or study in oils is far more distressing than a bad sketch in water- colours. The materials of water-colours are more manageable and convenient for those who have neither 3i6 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN much space nor much time at their command — that is to say, for the majority of amateurs. Moreover, water-colour painting is our national art, and it perhaps can never be fully understood or appreciated save by those who have some experience of its great technical difficulties. 317 DAUGHTERS