ESTHER 



2081 



ETCHING 



mining and brick and tile making are the only 

 industries of significance, but there are also 

 a number of distributors of implements and 

 other materials required in the neighborhood. 

 The local Dominion building, completed in 

 1909, and the collegiate institute, erected in 

 1914 at a cost of $65,000, are noteworthy 

 structures. The town owns and operates its 

 water, sewer and electric light systems. It is 

 the center of a judicial district. Population 

 in 1911, 1,981; in 1916, 2,140. P.C.D. 



ESTHER, es'ter, the central figure in one 

 of the world's most beautiful stories, a comely 

 Jewish maiden, who became the wife of the 

 despotic Persian king, Ahasuerus, and saved 

 all her nation from destruction. The tale is 

 found in the book of Esther (see below). 

 When Esther was left an orphan, her cousin 

 Mordecai took her under his protection and 

 trained her until the time when the king, who 

 had divorced Vashti, sought a new queen; then 

 she was chosen for the high honor. It was 

 not known at the time that she was a Jewess, 

 but later when Haman, who had become the 

 royal favorite, sought to destroy all the Jews, 

 she revealed her nationality to the king and 

 pleaded so successfully for her people that the 

 plotter Haman was hanged on the gallows 

 he had prepared for the Jews. 



The Book of Esther, the last of the historical 

 books of the Old Testament, written about 

 425 B. c., gives the life of the beautiful queen 

 whose name it bears. Its authorship is un- 

 known, and some have opposed including it 

 in the Bible, because the name of God does 

 not appear in it. The great lesson in the 

 book is the overruling power of Providence. 

 The strongest argument for the fact that the 

 story of Esther is true lies in the feast of 

 Purim, which is still observed by the Jews 

 to celebrate the saving of the nation from 

 destruction at the time of Esther. 



ESTHETICS, es thet'iks, from a Greek word 

 meaning perceptive, was applied by the Ger- 

 man philosopher Hegel, early in the nine- 

 teenth century, to a science of fine arts which 

 he had worked out. Since his time the term 

 has been in general use to designate the phi- 

 losophy of the beautiful in nature or in art. 

 Though the ancient Greeks did not think of 

 esthetics as a separate branch of learning, this 

 philosophy began with their early specula- 

 tions on the nature of beauty. Socrates taught 

 that beauty and usefulness were one and the 

 same thing, and that art was simply an imi- 

 tation of nature. 

 131 



ESTHONIA, an independent Baltic state, bor- 

 dering on the Gulf of Finland, with Livonia on 

 the south. In 1346 it was purchased from Den- 

 mark by Germany; in 1561 it was won in war 

 by Sweden, which ceded it to Russia in 1721. 

 * By the treaty of peace, in January, 1918, be- 

 tween Germany and Russia's bolsheviki govern- 

 ment, it returned to German ownership, but was 

 relinquished in 1919, and a republic was formed. 

 Including Dago and other islands, the area is 

 7,820 square miles; the population, 471,400. 

 Ninety per cent of the people are Esthonians, 

 who call themselves Esths. 



ETCH 'ING, a process of engraving metal 

 plates by means of an acid. In ordinary line- 

 engraving (see ENGRAVING) the lines of the 

 design are literally ploughed into the plate by 

 force. In etching, on the contrary, the design 

 is lightly drawn or scratched on the surface of 

 the plate, and is then deepened to the desired 

 degree by the use of acidk 



The word etching is a form of the Dutch 

 word essen, which means to eat, for in etching 

 the acid eats away the copper. The plate is 

 first cleaned thoroughly, and is then covered 

 with an etching ground. This ground may be 

 made in several ways, but is usually a composi- 

 tion of wax, gum-arabic and bitumen. When 

 applied evenly to the surface of the plate, this 

 ground protects it from the action of the acid, 

 except at those points at which the etcher's 

 needle has cut through it. 



The design or drawing may be traced, or it 

 may be drawn directly on the plate; in the 

 latter case it is usually called a painter etching, 

 because the etcher is drawing on his plate as 

 the painter does on his canvas. To draw the 

 design in the wax most etchers use needles of 

 varying sizes, but any sharp instrument will 

 do, and Turner, the great painter, engraver and 

 etcher, actually used the prong of an old steel 

 fork. The needle scrapes away the etching 

 ground and leaves a bare copper surface, into 

 which the acid bites. 



The biting was formerly done with nitrous 

 acid, but a mixture of hydrochloric acid and 

 chlorate of potash is now more commonly used. 

 To get lines of different depth and heaviness 

 it is necessary to give the plate several baths 

 in the acid. Any lines which are already deep 

 enough can be stopped out, that is, covered 

 with a varnish or etching ground which keeps 

 out the acid while the remaining lines are 

 being deepened. 



As explained in the article ENGRAVING, etch- 

 ing has long been recognized as a legitimate 



