288 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



never untender, never untrue. Not Tintoret in power, not 

 Raphael in flexibility, not Holbein in veracity, not Luini in 

 love, their gathered gifts he has, in balanced and fruitful 

 measure, fit to be the guide, and impulse, and father of all. 



LECTURE m. 



THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. 



73. I AM to-day to begin to tell you what it is necessary 

 you should observe respecting methods of manual execution 

 in the two great arts of engraving. Only to begin to tell you. 

 There need be no end of telling you such things, if you care 

 to hear them. The theory of art is soon mastered ; but ' dal 

 detto al fatto, v'e gran tratto ; ' and as I have several times 

 told you in former lectures, every day shows me more and 

 more the importance of the Hand. 



74. Of the hand as a Servant, observe, not of the hand as 

 a Master. For there are two great kinds of manual work : 

 one in which the hand is continually receiving and obeying 

 orders ; the other in which it is acting independently, or even 

 giving orders of its own. And the dependent and submis- 

 sive hand is a noble hand ; but the independent or imperative 

 hand is a vile one. 



That is to say, as long as the pen, or chisel, or other 

 graphic instrument, is moved under the direct influence of 

 mental attention, and obeys orders of the brain, it is work- 

 ing nobly ; the moment it moves independently of them, and 

 performs some habitual dexterity of its own, it is base. 



75. Dexterity I say ; some 'right-handedness ' of its own, 

 We might wisely keep that word for what the hand does at 



. the mind's bidding ; and use an opposite word sinisterity, 

 for what it does at its own. For indeed we want such a 

 word in speaking of modern art ; it is all full of sinisterity. 

 Hands independent of brains ; the left hand, by division of 

 labour, not knowing what the right does, still less what it 

 ought to do. 



