ng, to exhibit the qualities and
power of _thin_ ones.

All thin dark lines, therefore, in wood, broadly speaking, are to be
used only in case of necessity; and thick lines, on metal, only in case
of necessity.

80. Though, however, thin _dark_ lines cannot easily be produced in
wood, thin _light_ ones may be struck in an instant. Nevertheless, even
thin light ones must not be used, except with extreme caution. For
observe, they are equally useless as outline, and for expression of
mass. You know how far from exemplary or delightful your boy's first
quite voluntary exercises in white line drawing on your slate were? You
could, indeed, draw a goblin satisfactorily in such method;--a round O,
with arms and legs to it, and a scratch under two dots in the middle,
would answer the purpose; but if you wanted to draw a pretty face, you
took pencil or pen, and paper--not your slate. Now, that instinctive
feeling that a white outline is wrong, is deeply founded. For Nature
herself draws with diffused light, and concentrated dark;--never, except
in storm or twilight, with diffused dark, and concentrated light; and
the thing we all like best to see drawn--the human face--cannot be drawn
with white touches, but by extreme labor. For the pupil and iris of the
eye, the eyebrow, the nostril, and the lip are all set in dark on pale
ground. You can't draw a white eyebrow, a white pupil of the eye, a
white nostril, and a white mouth, on a dark ground. Try it, and see what
a specter you get. But the same number of dark touches, skillfully
applied, will give the idea of a beautiful face. And what is true of the
subtlest subject you have to represent, is equally true of inferior
ones. Nothing lovely can be quickly represented by white touches. You
must hew out, if your means are so restricted, the form by sheer labor;
and that both cunning and dextrous. The Florentine masters, and Duerer,
often practice the achievement, and there are many drawings by the
Lippis, Mantegna, and other leading Italian draughtsmen, completed to
great perfection with the white line; but only for the sake of severest
study, nor is their work imitable by inferior men. And such studies,
however accomplished, always mark a disposition to regard chiaroscuro
too much, and local color too little.

We conclude, then, that we must never trust, in wood, to our power of
outline with white; and our general laws, thus far determined, will
be--thick lines in wood; thin ones