The method came to me in a vision. My brother Robert, who died these twelve months past, appeared and showed me the whole process — writing and drawing upon the copper in reverse, with a liquid impervious to acid, then eating away the plain surfaces with aquafortis.

I write the words backwards with a brush dipped in an acid-resistant ground — a mixture I have composed myself, of asphaltum dissolved in turpentine. The same ground serves for drawing. Every letter, every leaf and tendril, every figure — all must be set down in mirror, that they may print true.

I have invented a method of Printing which combines the Painter and the Poet.