which you all succumb, would not have much satisfaction to expect from
this work."

"No, no, no!" Daphne interrupted in a louder tone than usual, and with
the earnest desire to convince him. "Precisely because I transported
myself into your tendency, your aspirations, I recognised the danger.
O Hermon! what produced so sinister an effect by the wavering light of
the lamps and torches, while the thunderstorm was rising--the strands of
hair, the outspread fingers, the bewildered, staring blue eyes--do you
not feel yourself how artificial, how unnatural it all was? This
transformation was only a clever trick of acting, nothing more. Before a
quiet spectator, in the pure, truthful light of Apollo, the foe of all
deception, what would this Arachne probably become? Even now--I have
already said so--when I imagine her executed in marble or in gold and
ivory! Beauty? Who would expect to find in the active, constantly
toiling weaver, the mortal daughter of an industrious dyer in purple, the
calm, refreshing charm of divine women? I at least am neither foolish
nor unjust enough to do so. The degree of beauty Althea possesses would
entirely satisfy me for the Arachne. But when I imagine a plastic work
faithful to the model of yesterday evening--though I have seen a great
deal with my own eyes, and am always ready to defer to riper judgment--
I would think, while looking at it: This statue came to the artist from
the stage, but never from Nature. Such would be my view, and I am not
one of the initiated. But the adepts! The King, with his thorough
connoisseurship and fine taste, my father, and the other famous judges,
how much more keenly they would perceive and define it!"

Here she hesitated, for the blood had left Hermon's cheeks, and she saw
with surprise the deep impression which the candid expression of her
opinion had produced upon the artist, usually so independent and disposed