The young lady's book : a manual of elegant recreations, arts, sciences, and accomplishments / edited by distinguished professors.

Date:
[1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The young lady's book : a manual of elegant recreations, arts, sciences, and accomplishments / edited by distinguished professors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    oblique lines from a, a, a, to the point of distance d, which will give intersections opposite e e, through which horizontal lines being drawn, the representation of the tops of the cubes will be com- plete, and we have only to let fall perpendiculars/rom the points of intersection, and the sides of the cubes are obtained. The leading principles of perspective being rendered familiar by practice, it is not necessary, in every case, to go through the whole process; the eye becomes correct, and any violation of its rules is offensive to the sight. Examples might be multiplied to any extent; but as it would be impossible to compress within our limits a complete treatise on perspective, we have preferred giving such an introduction as may serve to show that the difficulties of the really useful part of this science are not so great as they are generally thought to be; and we are sure, that those of our readers who have accompanied us in this short excursion into the terra incognita of the mathematics, will be induced to extend their researches; for this purpose, we recommend them to the guidance of Malton, Dr. Brook Taylor, the ‘Jesuit’s Perspective,’ or Wood’s ‘Elements of Perspective,’ whose learned and comprehensive works have left little for their successors to do but to familiarise the subject, and divest it of apparent difficulties. And now let us earnestly recommend the study of the art of drawing to our young readers, not less for the graceful and agreeable employment it will afford them, than for its actual utility, which is, indeed, so manifest on many occasions, that we do not scruple to say, a knowledge of drawing ought to be acquired in youth as a practical art, like that of writing; it is indeed, a kind of short-hand, which is often as superior to writing in clearness, as it is in brevity. It frequently occurs that we find it impossible to convey a correct idea of what we wish to describe, through the medium of words, and after much exertion <nve up the attempt in despair, when a few moments’ exercise of a mo- derate degree of skill in drawing would elucidate our otherwise ineffectual description at a glance. Two strokes of a pencil says a periodical essayist, will often tell a tale of unknown length] and there are many tales which cannot be told without°it: many persons of acute observation, and profound science have p ouohed the depths of ocean, scaled the Alps, the Andes, and, as the same lively writer observes, run all over the world to disennui themselves, and bring home journals; and when the journals have generated a quarto, or half-a-dozen quartos, nine tenths and the better part too—of the story are still to seek ! lhere are beasts, and buildings, and men, and plants, and serpents and gorgons, and chimeras, and countries of all kinds—archi-