If we sketch a cottage on a plain and put it down squarely on our paper, the cottage in the centre with a tree on either side and a sketch of flat country beyond, how foolish and empty the flat plain appears!
But shift the cottage to one side, and search for some little 'incident' (or action), though it is but a pathway, to impart an interest to the larger space. Then the sketch becomes at once more satisfactory—it holds the eye. Firstly, we are attracted by the cottage and trees massed pleasantly together; secondly, by the
pathway, which brings the eye back again to the centre of the picture.
Nature has her compositions; we merely select from them with a little care. We do not aim—the Fates forbid!—at rearranging Nature. But we do aim at choosing a happy time, or, rather, sketching a good subject at a happy moment.
