Ruskin, John: The elements of drawing: in three letters to beginners (London, 1857)

LETTER II.]

SKETCHING FROM NATUBE.

187

any undulating ground with entire carefulness, you
will be surprised to find how much they explain of
the form and distance of the earth on which they
fall.

Passing then to skies, note that there is this
great peculiarity about sky subject, as distin-
guished from earth subject ; — that the clouds,
not being much liable to man's interference, are
always beautifully arranged. You cannot be sure
of this in any other features of landscape. The
rock on which the effect of a mountain scene espe-
cially depends is always precisely that which the
roadmaker blasts or the landlord quarries; and
the spot of green which Nature left with a special
purpose by her dark forest sides, and finished with
her most delicate grasses, is always that which the
farmer ploughs or builds upon. But the clouds,
though we can hide them with smoke, and mix
them with poison, cannot be quarried nor built over,
and they are always therefore gloriously arranged;
so gloriously, that unless you have notable powers
of memory you need not hope to approach the