you make to me, if I asked casually what engraving
was? Perhaps the readiest which would occur to you would be, "The
translation of pictures into black and white by means admitting
reduplication of impressions." But if that be done by lithography, we do
not call it engraving,--whereas we speak contentedly and continually of
seal engraving, in which there is no question of black and white. And,
as scholars, you know that this customary mode of speaking is quite
accurate; and that engraving means, primarily, making a permanent cut or
furrow in something. The central syllable of the word has become a
sorrowful one, meaning the most permanent of furrows.

10. But are you prepared absolutely to accept this limitation with
respect to engraving as a pictorial art? Will you call nothing an
engraving, except a group of furrows or cavities cut in a hard
substance? What shall we say of mezzotint engraving, for instance, in
which, though indeed furrows and cavities are produced mechanically as a
ground, the artist's work is in effacing them? And when we consider the
power of engraving in representing pictures and multiplying them, are we
to recognize and admire no effects of light and shade except those which
are visibly produced by dots or furrows? I mean, will the virtue of an
engraving be in exhibiting these imperfect means of its effect, or in
concealing them?

11. Here, for instance, is the head of a soldier by Duerer,--a mere
gridiron of black lines. Would this be better or worse engraving if it
were more like a photograph or lithograph, and no lines seen?--suppose,
more like the head of Mr. Santley, now in all the music-shops, and
really quite deceptive in light and shade, when seen from over the way?
Do you think Duerer's work would be better if it were more like that? And
would you have me, therefore, leaving the question of technical method
of production altogether to the craftsman, consider pictorial engraving
simply as the production of a light-and-shade drawing, by some method
permitting its multiplication for the public?

12. This, you observe, is a very practical question indeed. For
instance, the illustrations of my own lectures on sculpture are
equivalent to permanent photographs. There can be little doubt that
means will be discovered of thus producing perfect facsimiles of
artists' drawings; so that, if no more than facsimile be required, the
old art of cutting furrows in metal may be considered as, at this da