right when
you refuse to sink to mere imitators of earlier works, and therefore
return to Nature, with which we Hellenes, and perhaps the Egyptians also,
began. The latter forgot her; the former--we Greeks--continued to cling
to her closely."

"Some few," Hermon eagerly interrupted the other, "still think it worth
the trouble to take from her what she alone can bestow. They save
themselves the toilsome search for the model which others so successfully
used before them, and bronze and marble still keep wonderfully well.
Bring out the old masterpieces. Take the head from this one, the arm from
that, etc. The pupil impresses the proportions on his mind. Only so far
as the longing for the beautiful permits do even the better ones remain
faithful to Nature, not a finger's breadth more."

"Quite right," the other went on calmly. "But your objection only brings
one nearer the goal. How many who care only for applause content
themselves to-day, unfortunately, with Nature at second hand! Without
returning to her eternally fresh, inexhaustible spring, they draw from
the conveniently accessible wells which the great ancients dug for them."

"I know these many," Hermon wrathfully exclaimed. "They are the brothers
of the Homeric poets, who take verses from the Iliad and Odyssey to piece
out from them their own pitiful poems."

"Excellent, my son!" exclaimed Thyone, laughing, and Daphne remarked that
the poet Cleon had surprised her father with such a poem a few weeks
before. It was a marvellous bit of botchwork, and yet there was a certain
meaning in the production, compiled solely from Homeric verses.

"Diomed's Hecuba," observed Proclus, "and the Aphrodite by Hippias, which
were executed in marble, originated in the same way, and deserve no
better fate, although they please the great multitude. But, praised be my
lord, Apollo, our age can also boast of other artists. Filled with the
spirit of the god, they are able to model truthfully and faithfully even
the forms of the immortals invisible to the physical eye. They stand
before the spectator as if borrowed from Nature, for their creators have
filled them with their own healthy vigour. Our poor Myrtilus belonged to
this class and, after your Demeter, the world will include you in it
also."

"And yet," answered Hermon in a tone of dissent, "I remained faithful to
myself, and put nothing, nothing at all of my own personality, into the
forms borrowed from Nature."

"What nee