You are under a twofold disadvantage here, however; first, there
are portions in every photograph too delicately done for you at present
to be at all able to copy; and secondly, there are portions always more
obscure or dark than there would be in the real scene, and involved in a
mystery which you will not be able, as yet, to decipher. Both these
characters will be advantageous to you for future study, after you have
gained experience, but they are a little against you in early attempts
at tinting; still you must fight through the difficulty, and get the
power of producing delicate gradations with brown or grey, like those of
the photograph.

Now observe; the perfection of work would be tinted shadow, like
photography, _without_ any obscurity or exaggerated darkness; and as
long as your effect depends in anywise on visible _lines_, your art is
not perfect, though it may be first-rate of its kind. But to get
complete results in tints merely, requires both long time and consummate
skill; and you will find that a few well-put pen lines, with a tint
dashed over or under them, get more expression of facts than you could
reach in any other way, by the same expenditure of time. The use of the
Liber Studiorum print to you is chiefly as an example of the simplest
shorthand of this kind, a shorthand which is yet capable of dealing with
the most subtle natural effects; for the firm etching gets at the
expression of complicated details, as leaves, masonry, textures of
ground, &c., while the overlaid tint enables you to express the most
tender distances of sky, and forms of playing light, mist or cloud. Most
of the best drawings by the old masters are executed on this principle,
the touches of the pen being useful also to give a look of transparency
to shadows, which could not otherwise be attained but by great finish
of tinting; and if you have access to any ordinarily good public
gallery, or can make friends of any print-sellers who have folios of old
drawings, or facsimiles of them, you will not be at a loss to find some
example of this unity of pen with tinting. Multitudes of photographs
also are now taken from the best drawings by the old masters, and I hope
that our Mechanics' Institutes, and other societies organized with a
view to public instruction, will not fail to possess themselves of
examples of these, and to make them accessible to students of drawing in
the vicinity; a single print from Turner's Liber, to show the uni