ts.

You cannot use the point too delicately or cunningly in doing this; work
with it as if you were drawing the down on a butterfly's wing.

16. At this stage of your progress, if not before, you may be assured
that some clever friend will come in, and hold up his hands in mocking
amazement, and ask you who could set you to that "niggling;" and if you
persevere in it, you will have to sustain considerable persecution from
your artistical acquaintances generally, who will tell you that all good
drawing depends on "boldness." But never mind them. You do not hear them
tell a child, beginning music, to lay its little hand with a crash among
the keys, in imitation of the great masters: yet they might, as
reasonably as they may tell you to be bold in the present state of your
knowledge. Bold, in the sense of being undaunted, yes; but bold in the
sense of being careless, confident, or exhibitory,--no,--no, and a
thousand times no; for, even if you were not a beginner, it would be bad
advice that made you bold. Mischief may easily be done quickly, but good
and beautiful work is generally done slowly; you will find no boldness
in the way a flower or a bird's wing is painted; and if Nature is not
bold at her work, do you think you ought to be at yours? So never mind
what people say, but work with your pencil point very patiently; and if
you can trust me in anything, trust me when I tell you, that though
there are all kinds and ways of art,--large work for large places, small
work for narrow places, slow work for people who can wait, and quick
work for people who cannot,--there is one quality, and, I think, only
one, in which all great and good art agrees;--it is all delicate art.
Coarse art is always bad art. You cannot understand this at present,
because you do not know yet how much tender thought, and subtle care,
the great painters put into touches that at first look coarse; but,
believe me, it is true, and you will find it is so in due time.

17. You will be perhaps also troubled, in these first essays at pencil
drawing, by noticing that more delicate gradations are got in an instant
by a chance touch of the india-rubber, than by an hour's labor with the
point; and you may wonder why I tell you to produce tints so painfully,
which might, it appears, be obtained with ease. But there are two
reasons: the first, that when you come to draw forms, you must be able
to gradate with absolute precision, in whatever place and directi