DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0055
PASSING SKETCHES.
39
ness-field in which the studio stands, and to keep them as
memories of this beautiful place, and this beautiful passage
in our lives. We began, therefore, the other afternoon;
and to-day, being seized with a foreboding that as the field
was now again covered with deep grass and flowers it
would shortly be mown, we determined to draw flowers
from morning till evening.
The change of occupation was in itself a pleasure, and
with our usual insane enthusiasm for every new kind of
work, we declared, and most firmly believed at the time,
that nothing in the shape of work could compare with the
delight of drawing flowers,—the tracing their exquisite,
delicate lines, their infinite variation of form and character,
the living in spirit, like fairies as it were, among their bells
and under their leaves. Then two or three times, in the
course of the day, we had to make little expeditions into
the field for specimens; and, as it luckily happened, no-
body was at the studio that day, nor even any visitors,
only a group of children in tdie distance : we had the whole
paradise to ourselves, and could go about without bonnets
as if in our own garden. We sate among the flowers in the
warm grass, among bladder-campion and clover, and lady’s-
bedstraw, and hare-bells, and thyme, and eye-bright.
Above, the sky was cloudless, and so intensely blue, that
to talk of Italian skies being bluer would be absurd.
As I was thus sitting, admiring, and pondering, and re-
joicing, I chanced to look up, and saw a little boy coming
through the flowers towards me : he was rather a miserable-
looking little fellow, and worked, I fancy, at the stone-
mason’s : he was gathering flowers; he saw that I, also, had
gathered some, which lay in my lap : he came up, and
looking very shy, but with a most good-tempered smile on
his countenance, offered me some clover and eye-bright
with very short stalks. I was much pleased, and of course
thanked him with a smile, asking him whether he did not
39
ness-field in which the studio stands, and to keep them as
memories of this beautiful place, and this beautiful passage
in our lives. We began, therefore, the other afternoon;
and to-day, being seized with a foreboding that as the field
was now again covered with deep grass and flowers it
would shortly be mown, we determined to draw flowers
from morning till evening.
The change of occupation was in itself a pleasure, and
with our usual insane enthusiasm for every new kind of
work, we declared, and most firmly believed at the time,
that nothing in the shape of work could compare with the
delight of drawing flowers,—the tracing their exquisite,
delicate lines, their infinite variation of form and character,
the living in spirit, like fairies as it were, among their bells
and under their leaves. Then two or three times, in the
course of the day, we had to make little expeditions into
the field for specimens; and, as it luckily happened, no-
body was at the studio that day, nor even any visitors,
only a group of children in tdie distance : we had the whole
paradise to ourselves, and could go about without bonnets
as if in our own garden. We sate among the flowers in the
warm grass, among bladder-campion and clover, and lady’s-
bedstraw, and hare-bells, and thyme, and eye-bright.
Above, the sky was cloudless, and so intensely blue, that
to talk of Italian skies being bluer would be absurd.
As I was thus sitting, admiring, and pondering, and re-
joicing, I chanced to look up, and saw a little boy coming
through the flowers towards me : he was rather a miserable-
looking little fellow, and worked, I fancy, at the stone-
mason’s : he was gathering flowers; he saw that I, also, had
gathered some, which lay in my lap : he came up, and
looking very shy, but with a most good-tempered smile on
his countenance, offered me some clover and eye-bright
with very short stalks. I was much pleased, and of course
thanked him with a smile, asking him whether he did not