vener it will be.
But I have no mental authority over every line I thus lay: chance
regulates them. Whereas, when I draw at the rate of two or three seconds
to each line, my hand disobeys the muscles a little--the mechanical
accuracy is not so great; nay, there ceases to be any _appearance_ of
dexterity at all. But there is, in reality, more manual skill required
in the slow work than in the swift,--and all the while the hand is
thoroughly under the orders of the brains. Holbein deliberately
resolves, for every line, as it goes along, that it shall be so thick,
so far from the next,--that it shall begin here, and stop there. And he
is deliberately assigning the utmost quantity of meaning to it, that a
line will carry.

93. It is not fair, however, to compare common work of one age with the
best of another. Here is a woodcut of Tenniel's, which I think contains
as high qualities as it is possible to find in modern art.[T] I hold it
as beyond others fine, because there is not the slightest caricature in
it. No face, no attitude, is pushed beyond the degree of natural humor
they would have possessed in life; and in precision of momentary
expression, the drawing is equal to the art of any time, and shows power
which would, if regulated, be quite adequate to producing an immortal
work.

94. Why, then, is it _not_ immortal? You yourselves, in compliance with
whose demand it was done, forgot it the next week. It will become
historically interesting; but no man of true knowledge and feeling will
ever keep this in his cabinet of treasure, as he does these woodcuts of
Holbein's.

The reason is that this is base coin,--alloyed gold. There _is_ gold in
it, but also a quantity of brass and lead--willfully added--to make it
fit for the public. Holbein's is beaten gold, seven times tried in the
fire. Of which commonplace but useful metaphor the meaning here is,
first, that to catch the vulgar eye a quantity of,--so-called,--light
and shade is added by Tenniel. It is effective to an ignorant eye, and
is ingeniously disposed; but it is entirely conventional and false,
unendurable by any person who knows what chiaroscuro is.

Secondly, for one line that Holbein lays, Tenniel has a dozen. There
are, for instance, a hundred and fifty-seven lines in Sir Peter Teazle's
wig, without counting dots and slight cross-hatching;--but the entire
face and flowing hair of Holbein's preacher are done with forty-five
lines, all told.

95. Now obs