rtist than such a power,
at least this power is necessary. The qualities of hand and eye needful
to do this are the first conditions of artistic craft.

145. Try to draw a circle yourself with the "free" hand, and with a
single line. You cannot do it if your hand trembles, nor if it is in the
common sense of the word "free." So far from being free, it must be as
if it were fastened to an inflexible bar of steel. And yet it must move,
under this necessary control, with perfect, untormented serenity of ease.

146. That is the condition of all good work whatsoever. All freedom is
error. Every line you lay down is either right or wrong; it may be
timidly and awkwardly wrong, or fearlessly and impudently wrong. The
aspect of the impudent wrongness is pleasurable to vulgar persons, and is
what they commonly call "free" execution; the timid, tottering,
hesitating wrongness is rarely so attractive; yet sometimes, if
accompanied with good qualities, and right aims in other directions, it
becomes in a manner charming, like the inarticulateness of a child; but,
whatever the charm or manner of the error, there is but one question
ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or
wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a "free" line, but an
intensely continent, restrained, and considered line; and the action of
the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as "free," as the
hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision. A great operator
told me that his hand could check itself within about the two-hundredth
of an inch, in penetrating a membrane; and this, of course, without the
help of sight, by sensation only. With help of sight, and in action on a
substance which does not quiver or yield, a fine artist's line is
measurable in its proposed direction to considerably less than the
thousandth of an inch.

A wide freedom, truly!

147. The conditions of popular art which most foster the common ideas
about freedom, are merely results of irregularly energetic effort by men
imperfectly educated; these conditions being variously mingled with
cruder mannerisms resulting from timidity, or actual imperfection of
body. Northern hands and eyes are, of course, never so subtle as
Southern; and in very cold countries, artistic execution is palsied. The
effort to break through this timidity, or to refine the bluntness, may
lead to a licentious impetuosity, or an ostentatious minuteness. Every
man