208
AN ANGLER AT LARGE
will save my friends from the pain of asking certain questions. If beneath a sketch, when I exhibit it, I have written, Willows, not Haystacks, those who look at it will be able to concentrate their attention wholly on the treatment and other technical qualities. Their minds will be distracted by no doubts as to its general significance. Again, the words, A Beech in a Grass Field, legibly inscribed, under the study which I showed to Mrs. Slattery the other day, will put the species of tree and the nature of the ground which I have drawn, beyond question. I shall no longer have to explain the absence of reflection. Nor will Slattery cry out, "Oh, come! That's not bad of our pig-stye," when I am showing him my monochrome of the church.
