grim iron mask. But the intelligences of order and form guide them
into beauty, and inflame them with delicatest life.

123. And do you see the size of this head? About as large as the bud of
a forget-me-not! Can you imagine the fineness of the little pressures of
the hand on the steel, in that space, which at the edge of the almost
invisible lip, fashioned its less or more of smile?

My chemical friends, if you wish ever to know anything rightly
concerning the arts, I very urgently advise you to throw all your vials
and washes down the gutter-trap; and if you will ascribe, as you think
it so clever to do, in your modern creeds, all virtue to the sun, use
that virtue through your own heads and fingers, and apply your solar
energies to draw a skillful line or two, for once or twice in your life.
You may learn more by trying to engrave, like Goodall, the tip of an
ear, or the curl of a lock of hair, than by photographing the entire
population of the United States of America,--black, white, and
neutral-tint.

And one word, by the way, touching the complaints I hear at my having
set you to so fine work that it hurts your eyes. You have noticed that
all great sculptors--and most of the great painters of Florence--began
by being goldsmiths. Why do you think the goldsmith's apprenticeship is
so fruitful? Primarily, because it forces the boy to do small work, and
mind what he is about. Do you suppose Michael Angelo learned his
business by dashing or hitting at it? He laid the foundation of all his
after power by doing precisely what I am requiring my own pupils to
do,--copying German engravings in facsimile! And for your eyes--you all
sit up at night till you haven't got any eyes worth speaking of. Go to
bed at half-past nine, and get up at four, and you'll see something out
of them, in time.

124. Nevertheless, whatever admiration you may be brought to feel, and
with justice, for this lovely workmanship,--the more distinctly you
comprehend its merits, the more distinctly also will the question rise
in your mind, How is it that a performance so marvelous has yet taken no
rank in the records of art of any permanent or acknowledged kind? How
is it that these vignettes from Stothard and Turner,[AA] like the
woodcuts from Tenniel, scarcely make the name of the engraver known; and
that they never are found side by side with this older and apparently
ruder art, in the cabinets of men of real judgment? The reason is
precisely the