Outline, light and shade, variety of style and representation of surfaces, are all within the engraver's control, and a vast diversity of expression will be requisite for their realisation. It is quite within his power also to interpret the artist's thoughts as well as imitate his style, and this involves not only a judicious balancing of tone and texture, but a knowledge of the principles of art embodied in the picture--his copy. =Inartistic Work.=--Owing to an insatiable craving for pictorial illustration, there is an ever-growing tendency on the part of the artist engraver to seek after sensational or entertaining effects which are not artistic productions. Intensely interesting and attractive they may be, and yet signally deficient in the true elements of fine art. It is quite possible to make any art popular, however crude its conception and manifestation may be, so long as its expression is sufficiently striking or pleasing. Such products of the graver or brush may be elaborate compositions and effective forms of pictorial expression, inasmuch as they provide interesting information concerning past or current events. They may even possess a certain value as historical records, and yet not manifest that subtle power of suggestive beauty and intensity of thought which are _prima facie_ evidences of masterly genius and artistic power. When the energy and skill of the artist are thus devoted to expressive delineation in place of artistic completeness, he becomes satisfied with an inferior degree of excellence, provided only that it pleases; and the result will almost assuredly be an incomplete, if not vitiated, production. In these days of invention and advancement, when the resources of mankind are almost limitless, conditions of life favourable, and opportunities for the acquirement of knowledge and skill always abounding, there can surely be no valid excuse for this dead level mediocrity in the engraver's art,--a result which might possibly arise from the insiduous fever of display, of notoriety, and of commercialism which is ever seeking fresh victims in this as in every other phase of human life and effort. =Constructive Elements.=--An engraving may be an imitative or representative interpretation of a picture or drawing in _black_ and _white_. In such an interpretation, whatever its character may be, integrity of form is of paramount importance, and essential to the attainment of any degree of excellence in engraving. It imparts to the work a distinctive character, and endows it with that delicacy and precision of execution for which engraving is so justly famous.