and the delight you take in it should involve the
understanding of the difficulty the workman dealt with. You perhaps
doubt the extent to which this feeling justly extends, (in the first
volume of "Modern Painters," expressed under the head "Ideas of Power.")
But why is a large stone in any building grander than a small one?
Simply because it was more difficult to raise it. So, also, an engraved
line is, and ought to be, recognized as more grand than a pen or pencil
line, because it was more difficult to execute it.

In this mosaic of Lucca front you forgive much, and admire much,
because you see it is all cut in stone. So, in wood and steel, you ought
to see that every line has been costly; but observe, costly of
deliberative, no less than athletic or executive power. The main use of
the restraint which makes the line difficult to draw, is to give time
and motive for deliberation in drawing it, and to insure its being the
best in your power.

37. For, as with deliberation, so without repentance, your engraved line
must be. It may, indeed, be burnished or beaten out again in metal, or
patched and botched in stone; but always to disadvantage, and at pains
which must not be incurred often. And there is a singular evidence in
one of Duerer's finest plates that, in his time, or at least in his
manner of work, it was not possible at all. Among the disputes as to the
meaning of Duerer's Knight and Death, you will find it sometimes
suggested, or insisted, that the horse's raised foot is going to fall
into a snare. What has been fancied a noose is only the former outline
of the horse's foot and limb, uneffaced.

The engraved line is therefore to be conclusive; not experimental. "I
have determined this," says the engraver. Much excellent pen drawing is
excellent in being tentative,--in being experimental. Indeterminate, not
through want of meaning, but through fullness of it--halting _wisely_
between two opinions--feeling cautiously after clearer opinions. But
your engraver has made up his opinion. This is so, and must forever be
so, he tells you. A very proper thing for a thoughtful man to say; a
very improper and impertinent thing for a foolish one to say. Foolish
engraving is consummately foolish work. Look,--all the world,--look for
evermore, says the foolish engraver; see what a fool I have been! How
many lines I have laid for nothing! How many lines upon lines, with no
precept, much less superprecept!

38. Here, then,