r laughing in this dark and hollow world, I do
not think it is now. This is a wide subject, and I must follow it in
another place; for our present purpose, all that needs to be noted is
that, for the expression of true humor, few and imperfect lines are
often sufficient, and that in this direction lies the only opening for
the serviceable presentation of amateur work to public notice.

113. I have said nothing of lithography, because, with the exception of
Samuel Prout's sketches, no work of standard Art-value has ever been
produced by it, nor can be: its opaque and gritty texture being wholly
offensive to the eye of any well trained artist. Its use in connection
with color is, of course, foreign to our present subject. Nor do I take
any note of the various current patents for cheap modes of drawing,
though they are sometimes to be thanked for rendering possible the
publication of sketches like those of the pretty little "Voyage en
Zigzag" ("how we spent the summer") published by Longmans--which are
full of charming humor, character, and freshness of expression; and
might have lost more by the reduction to the severe terms of
wood-cutting than they do by the ragged interruptions of line which are
an inevitable defect in nearly all these cheap processes. It will be
enough, therefore, for all serious purpose, that we confine ourselves
to the study of the black line, as produced in steel and wood; and I
will endeavor in the next paper[83] to set down some of the technical
laws belonging to each mode of its employment.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] _Art Journal_, vol. v., pp. 97-8. April 1866.--ED.

[83] The present paper was, however, the last.--ED.

End of Project Gutenberg's On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2), by John Ruskin

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