form himself upon them. He had already been permitted by his master to
execute designs of his own, and out of the abundance of subjects which
offered themselves, he had chosen to model an Ariadne, waiting and
longing for the return of Thescus, as a symbolic image of his own
soul awaiting its salvation. How this work had filled his mind! how
delightful had the hours of labor seemed to him!--when, suddenly, his
stern father had come to the city, had seen his work before it was quite
finished, and instead of praising it had scorned it; had abused it as a
heathen idol, and had commanded Petrus to return home with him
immediately, and to remain there, for that his son should be a pious
Christian, and a good stone-mason withal--not half a heathen, and a maker
of false gods.

Petrus had much loved his art, but he offered no resistance to his
father's orders; he followed him back to the oasis, there to superintend
the work of the slaves who hewed the stone, to measure granite-blocks for
sarcophagi and pillars, and to direct the cutting of them. His father
was a man of steel, and he himself a lad of iron, and when he saw himself
compelled to yield to his father and to leave his master's workshop, to
abandon his cherished and unfinished work and to become an artizan and
mail of business, he swore never again to take a piece of clay in his
hand, or to wield a chisel. And he kept his word even after his fathers
death; but his creative instincts and love of art continued to live and
work in him, and were transmitted to his two sons.

Antonius was a highly gifted artist, and if Polykarp's master was not
mistaken, and if he himself were not misled by fatherly affection, his
second son was on the high road to the very first rank in art--to a
position reached only by elect spirits.