erful! and even to doubt the possibility of every page in the book
being completed in the same manner. Again, here are three of my own
drawings, executed with the pen, and Indian ink, when I was fifteen.
They are copies from large lithographs by Prout; and I imagine that most
of my pupils would think me very tyrannical if I requested them to do
anything of the kind themselves. And yet, when you see in the shop
windows a line engraving like this,[X] or this,[X] either of which
contains, alone, as much work as fifty pages of the manuscript book, or
fifty such drawings as mine, you look upon its effect as quite a matter
of course,--you never say 'how wonderful' _that_ is, nor consider how
you would like to have to live, by producing anything of the same kind
yourselves.

[Illustration: II.

The Star of FLORENCE.]

115. Yet you cannot suppose it is in reality easier to draw a line with
a cutting point, not seeing the effect at all, or, if any effect, seeing
a gleam of light instead of darkness, than to draw your black line at
once on the white paper? You cannot really think[Y] that there is
something complacent, sympathetic, and helpful in the nature of steel;
so that while a pen-and-ink sketch may always be considered an
achievement proving cleverness in the sketcher, a sketch on steel comes
out by mere favor of the indulgent metal; or that the plate is woven
like a piece of pattern silk, and the pattern is developed by pasteboard
cards punched full of holes? Not so. Look close at this engraving, or
take a smaller and simpler one, Turner's Mercury and Argus,--imagine it
to be a drawing in pen and ink, and yourself required similarly to
produce its parallel! True, the steel point has the one advantage of not
blotting, but it has tenfold or twentyfold disadvantage, in that you
cannot slur, nor efface, except in a very resolute and laborious way,
nor play with it, nor even see what you are doing with it at the moment,
far less the effect that is to be. You must _feel_ what you are doing
with it, and know precisely what you have got to do; how deep, how
broad, how far apart your lines must be, etc. and etc., (a couple of
lines of etceteras would not be enough to imply all you must know). But
suppose the plate _were_ only a pen drawing: take your pen--your
finest--and just try to copy the leaves that entangle the head of Io,
and her head itself; remembering always that the kind of work required
here is mere child's play comp