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Arachne — Volume 05 by Georg Ebers
page 13 of 61 (21%)
the hurt child."

"No, my friend," Proclus protested with grave decision. "I should
express no less warmly the ardent admiration with which this noble figure
of the goddess fills me if you were well and still possessed your sight.
You were right just now when you alluded to my aversion, or, let us say,
lack of appreciation of the individuality of your art; but this noble
work changes everything, and nothing affords me more pleasure than that I
am to be the first to assure you how magnificently you have succeeded in
this statue."

"The first!" Hermon again interrupted harshly. "But the second and
third will be lacking in Alexandria. What a pleasure it is to pour the
gifts of sympathy upon one to whom we wish ill! But, however successful
my Demeter may be, you would have awarded the prize twice over to the one
by Myrtilus."

"Wrong, my young friend!" the statesman protested with honest zeal.
"All honour to the great dead, whose end was so lamentable; but in this
contest--let me swear it by the goddess herself!--you would have remained
victor; for, at the utmost, nothing can rank with the incomparable save
a work of equal merit, and--I know life and art--two artists rarely or
never succeed in producing anything so perfect as this masterpiece at the
same time and in the same place."

"Enough!" gasped Hermon, hoarse with excitement; but Proclus, with
increasing animation, continued: "Brief as is our acquaintance, you have
probably perceived that I do not belong to the class of flatterers, and
in Alexandria it has hardly remained unknown to you that the younger
artists number me, to whom the office of judge so often falls, among the
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