a
moment lost sight of that original black line with which is our own
special business. The patience, the speed, the dignity, we can give to
that, the choice to be made of subject for it, are the matters I want to
get at. You think, perhaps, that an engraver's function is one of no
very high dignity;--does not involve a serious choice of work. Consider
a little of it. Here is a steel point, and 'tis like Job's "iron
pen"--and you are going to cut into steel with it, in a most deliberate
way, as into the rock forever. And this scratch or inscription of yours
will be seen of a multitude of eyes. It is not like a single picture or
a single wall painting; this multipliable work will pass through
thousand thousand hands, strengthen and inform innumerable souls, if it
be worthy; vivify the folly of thousands if unworthy. Remember, also, it
will mix in the very closest manner in domestic life. This engraving
will not be gossiped over and fluttered past at private views of
academies; listlessly sauntered by in corners of great galleries. Ah,
no! This will hang over parlor chimney-pieces--shed down its hourly
influence on children's forenoon work. This will hang in little luminous
corners by sick beds; mix with flickering dreams by candlelight, and
catch the first rays from the window's "glimmering square." You had
better put something good into it! I do not know a more solemn field of
labor than that _champ d'acier_. From a pulpit, perhaps a man can only
reach one or two people, for that time,--even your book, once carelessly
read, probably goes into a bookcase catacomb, and is thought of no more.
But this; taking the eye unawares again and again, and always again:
persisting and inevitable! where will you look for a chance of saying
something nobly, if it is not here?

68. And the choice is peculiarly free; to you of all men most free. An
artist, at first invention, cannot always choose what shall come into
his mind, nor know what it will eventually turn into. But you, professed
copyists, unless you have mistaken your profession, have the power of
governing your own thoughts, and of following and interpreting the
thoughts of others. Also, you see the work to be done put plainly before
you; you can deliberately choose what seems to you best, out of myriads
of examples of perfect Art. You can count the cost accurately; saying,
"It will take me a year--two years--five--a fourth or fifth, probably,
of my remaining life, to do this