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 need of that was there?" asked Proclus with a subtle smile. "Your