The etched line of Pennell is feminine. When he etched the Panama Series he forced it to Brangwyn bravoura, for which it is not suited. They are not art, these plates, whether the initial be large or small.
The etchings of Piranesi resemble the musical compositions of Handel. Both made temples stern, lofty, with mystery in the depths.
The etchings of Daubigny recall Virgil, in the Bucolics. The lovely, Latin land where cities are not near, fields are cultivated, and little rivers draw water birds! The line of Daubigny is gentle, loving. It is of the unforced rhythm of Virgil.
The line of Haden is cold, pure.
The line of Whistler is fretful, nervous, capricious. But marvellously sensitive! If he is not big, genial, he is exquisite. For one fretful moment Whistler could love gleam of a surface. He never at any time cared what was beneath. He could not hold calmness long enough to love anything into serenity. He possessed audacity, as much as skill. There floated before his keen, sensitive mind, memory of mighty Japanese, Chinese craftsmen, who outdistanced him by force of love, that self-sacrificing humility, which makes men great. He liked to startle. He liked to shock by technical surprises. He liked to lash observers with virtuosity.
He was a Czar bent upon forcing submission. With his genius there was commingled the trickster, mountebank. Nothing Whistler etched had weight. He could not bother with a vulgar thing. Instead it had witchery. The butterfly in flight!
I like the wet streets of Buhot when restless clouds are reflected on them, or the fleeting carriage of some Parisian mondaine. They are refreshing. He loves rain as Hiroshige loved it. But he shows it differently because he is of a different race. He has not the childlike sincerity of the Japanese. The sad wisdom of the decadent Latin is in him. Shadows are black which speeding wheels of Parisian beauties leave. But memory fills distance with magic, with wistfulness.
In the dim streets, the twilight corners of the Paris of Meryon, dwells old French romance. Gay, interesting, pathetic figures of Balzac! Dumas the Elder, Hugo! It is the Paris that inspired Baudelaire, Gautier.
Etching has humming-bird grace; it has poignancy and intimacy. One holds it to the heart like a violin. It catches the moment which vanishes. It holds cruelly, derisively, the flash of sunlight that caressed some surface we regret but love. Etching is near the soul.