Etching

“ Definition.—An etching is a design fixed on metal by the action of an acid. The art of etching consists, in the first place, in drawing, with a point or needle, upon a metal plate, which is perfectly polished, and covered with a layer of varnish, or ground, blackened by smoke; and, secondly, in exposing the plate, when the drawing is finished, to the action of nitric acid. The acid, which does not affect fatty substances but corrodes metal, eats into the lines which have been laid bare by the needle, and thus the drawing is bitten in. ”

“ In the etching of Story Telling, the deep shadows of an old baronial hall are illuminated solely by the moonbeams and the flickering flame of the firelight; a door opens into a gallery beyond, and one of the listeners, fascinated by the ghost story to which she is listening, glances fearfully over her shoulder as if apprehensive that something uncanny will presently issue out of the black recesses. ”

“ An etcher of great merit has conceived the original idea of executing an etching in the bath itself, commencing with the passages which need a vigorous biting, then successively passing on to the more delicate parts, and finally ending with the sky. [C] The various distances thus receive their due proportion of biting; but it is necessary to work very quickly, as the biting of a plate etched in the bath in this manner proceeds five to six times more rapidly than if done in the ordinary manner. ”

“ If the proofs are too soft, or wanting in decision, the plate may [Pg 53] be worked over with the needle, by regrounding, and then rebiting it. The first state can thus be elaborated like an ordinary etching, and the necessary precision can be given to it whenever the idea to be expressed is vaguely or insufficiently rendered; or the same end may be reached by the dry point. In either case, however, all the retouches must be executed by irregular stippling, so that they may harmonize with the result of the first biting. ”

“ Hamerton prepares his plate by brightening it, first with cyanide of silver, and then laying on a ground of white wax. The plate is fastened into a tray, or shallow bath, and the mordant, as the acid preparation is called, is poured over it. The etcher draws his picture while the plate lies in the mordant. The lines blacken as soon as drawn. If a second or third biting is necessary, the plate is cleaned and re-waxed.
This is the mechanical part of etching. So simple it is that it seems that any one could be a successful etcher. But there is a knowledge and skill apart from the mechanical work. ”

“ First edition. Three photogravure plates.
HADEN, Sir Francis Seymour.—About Etching. Part I. Notes by Mr. Seymour Haden on a collection of etchings and engravings by the great masters lent by him to the Fine Art Society to illustrate the subject of etching. Part II. An annotated catalogue of the examples exhibited of etchers and painter-engravers' work. Illustrated with An original Etching by Mr. Seymour Haden, and fifteen facsimiles of Etchings. [London] The Fine Art Society . . . 1879. 4to, half brown morocco, gilt top, uncut edges. ”

“ The Rules which govern the Biting are subordinated to various Causes.—In reality, it is impossible to establish fixed rules for the biting, for the following reasons:—
1. Owing to the varying intensity of the stroke of the needle. The etcher who confines himself to gently baring his copper must bite longer than he who attacks his plate more vigorously, and therefore exposes it more to the action of the acid. ”

“ The dark stones that have so long been the sepulchres of the thoughts of nations, and the forgotten ruins wherein their faith lay charnelled, give up the dead that were in them; and beneath the Egyptian ranks of sultry and silent rock, and amidst the dim golden lights of the Byzantine dome, and out of the confused and cold shadows of the Northern cloister, behold, the multitudinous souls come forth with singing, gazing on us with the soft eyes of newly comprehended sympathy, and stretching their white arms to us across the grave, in the solemn gladness of everlasting brotherhood. ”

“ It is almost as captivating, I think, to watch the gurgling sweep of a chalk stream as the more boisterous humours of her wilder sister of the mountain. The Itchen, having regard merely to the water between its banks, is singularly beautiful. As pellucid as the Wiley, there is a life and movement and rush over the gravel greater even than in that engaging stream, whose surroundings, however, like those of the Upper Avon, are far more natural and characteristic than the slightly conventional atmosphere of the Itchen. ”

“ The man who had coughed sat upon a bowlder at the foot of the cliff. He was old, I fancied, but his beard was a sort of greasy purplish red. Those who have seen the earth about an iron mine will know the color. His hair was of the same hue, and it fell down over his ear in straight, lank locks—like the tails of eels. There was a gloss to it, I remember—a red, oily gloss. His eyes were quite black, and I do not desire to see again a face so unutterably white as this man's face was. He wore clothes—I was unreasonably surprised at this—and they, too, were red with the redness of iron ore. ”

“ One came up roaring with open mouth to devour him, when he struck it with his wand, and laid it in an instant dead at his feet. He soon came to the Ettin's castle, where he knocked, and was admitted. The old woman who sat by the fire warned him of the terrible Ettin, and what had been the fate of his brother; but he was not to be daunted. The monster soon came in, saying:
“Snouk but and snouk ben, I find the smell of an earthly man; Be he living, or be he dead, His heart shall be kitchen to my bread.” ”

“ Hi! It was done in an instant. At a moment when the roll brought him on top, and when the otter was shifting her own hold for another, and more deadly, which might have "put him to sleep" forever, he miraculously twisted and writhed, eel-fashion, and with one mighty wrench—a good strip of his skin and fur had to go in that pull, but it couldn't be helped—he had broken the other's hold, leapt clear of the clinch, and was gone. ”

“ And so having according to my promise given you these short Observations concerning the Bream, I shall also give you some Observations concerning the Tench, and those also very briefly.
The Tench is observed to love to live in Ponds; but if he be in a River, then in the still places of the River, he is observed to be a Physician to other fishes, and is so called by many that have been searchers into the nature of fish ”

“ Then the morass and all the hills about it were bathed in the glow, and the swollen stream, visible over the edge of the nest, glistened like silver. Quick to accept Nature’s bounty for the winterlings, the otter, when satisfied that no eye observed her, took them between her lips, carried them from the gloomy hover, and laid them on a tussock which screened her where she crouched, ready to protect them. There the cubs stretched themselves and basked with quiet content in the health-giving rays. ”

“ The Etsch flows more gently in these parts, and it makes broad deposits of gravel in many places. On the land, near the river and up the hills, the planting is so thick and close, that one fancies one thing will suffocate the other. It is a regular thicket of vineyards, maize, mulberry trees, apples, pears, quinces, and nuts. The danewort (Attig) thrives luxuriantly on the walls. Ivy with solid stems runs up the rocks, on which it spreads itself; the lizards glide through the interstices, and whatever has life or motion here, reminds one of the most charming works of art. ”

“ Despite the depth of the water, the current, and the restless movements of the wild-fowl, the frost had had its way; the vast sheet was one continuous field of steel-blue ice. The otters had witnessed the sealing of the mere, had watched the ducks, geese and swans take wing and melt into the night, before they realized their desperate situation; then, had the cubs been able to travel, they would at once have turned their back on the marshland, as the wild-fowl had done, and made across country for the salmon river, where fish crowded the spawning-beds. ”

“ Tench lie in the deep muddy holes. With the exception of the tench, the greater number of the fish in this mere haunt the sandy and stony shores. When the lake is full there are broad stretches of water which are shallow and where the bottom is mud. You may look here in vain for fish: of course there are some; but as you glide over noiselessly in a punt, gazing down into the water as you drift before the gentle summer breeze, you will not see any of those shoals that frequent the other shores where the bottom is clearer. ”

“ Only two mishaps Betty had to relate. Jim had eaten up the canary bird, and she had broken the kitchen tongs. She had also failed to accomplish as much sewing as she had hoped to do, and the pile of work was not greatly diminished.
"There is so many steps to take when a body is alone, and with you gone I was more particular," she said, by way of apology, as she confessed to the rat, and the canary bird, and the kitchen tongs, and the small amount of sewing she had done. ”

“ Etna groans under their anvils' pressure, as alternating they lift their arms mightily in time, and turn the iron about in the grip of their tongs: even so, if small things may be compared with great, are our Attic bees urged on each in her proper duty by inborn love of possession. The aged have the town in charge, and the walling of the combs and the shaping of the curious chambers ”

“ On the one hand were the Etahs, who were actual children of the stone age—clothed in skins, without wood or metal, having neither houses nor boats, using stone utensils in their rude huts of skin or of rock, and living solely by the hunt. Following the chase with weapons of bone, through untold hardships they wrested, day by day, precarious food from their home environment—a habitat on one of the most desolate reaches of the arctic coasts. ”

“ It is still the object to run him up-stream, whilst he now finds it easier to swim down. 'Look out below!' is therefore heard in the fine voice of the master. There is a trusty person down-stream watching a shallow stickle, where the otter must be seen if he passes. Suddenly the clamour ceases, and silence prevails. The otter has mysteriously disappeared, and he has to be fresh found. The master is in no hurry. There is too much scent in the water of various sorts, and he will be glad to pause till it has floated away. He takes his hounds down-stream. ”

“ So he sat watching the flank of the otter rise and fall, his gaze never shifting, even when a cormorant rose close to the island and looked at him with its green eyes before resuming its fishing.
Meanwhile the otter lay unconscious of the presence of the bird; but towards sundown the scream of a gull, and again soon after, the croak of a raven caused her suddenly to stir and scan the moor in order to satisfy herself that there was no cause for alarm. ”

“ The day proved intensely hot and still, with not a breath to ripple the surface or freshen the stifling air of the brake where the otters lay panting until dusk fell and allowed them to quench their tormenting thirst without fear of detection. ”

“ Otter-hunters calls it his chain, and it follows him wherever he goes, betraying his track in the muddiest water. He craftily puts his nose, his nose only, up to get a fresh supply of air now and then, under a bush or behind a rock, and then owners of sharp eyes call 'Hoo-gaze!' He finds himself in desperate straits, and he makes up his mind to go for his parlour at all hazards; but the hounds catch sight of him in the shallow of the trusty man, and the chase comes to an end. Otters are never speared in the West. ”

“ Tench from the Continent; a view which, however, is not supported by any evidence, and is practically disposed of by the fact that fossil remains of the fish are found in the Pleistocene deposits of Great Britain. In central Europe it thrives best in enclosed, preserved waters, with a clayey or muddy bottom and with an abundant vegetation; it avoids clear waters with stony ground, and is altogether absent from rapid streams. The tench is distinguished by its very small scales, which are deeply imbedded in a thick skin, whose surface is as slippery as that of an eel. ”

“ Then the hunters in single file made along the slender stream for the basin below the fall, sporting together till the sun rose over the distant sea and flooded the upland with its beams. The otter, usually observant of the first signs of dawn, seemed not to heed the golden light, even when the cubs began to grow uneasy and to shoot reproachful glances at her for keeping them abroad at so late an hour. ”

“ He was standing in the walled garden switching a limber trout-rod when Miss Erith came upon him next morning,—a tall straight young man in his kilts, supple and elegant as the lancewood rod he was testing.
Conscious of a presence behind him he turned, came toward her in the sunlight, the sun crisping his short hair. And in his pleasant level eyes the girl saw what had happened—what she had wrought—that this young man had come into his own again—into his right mind and his manhood—and that he had resumed his place among his fellow men and peers. ”

“ It is a hardy fish, and rarely shows signs of exhaustion.
C. Tinea.—The tench is a quiet, shy fish, distinct in outline, and easily recognised; but, like the gudgeon, destitute of any highly attractive features. The tench is the most tenacious of life of any fish in the collection, and never shows signs of exhaustion by gulping air from the surface. Tench are easily tamed, and take great pleasure in nibbling their proprietor’s fingers. Mine eat bread and cheese with me, and nibble my fingers fiercely whenever I permit them. ”