come to-morrow morning. I could paint on till nightfall, but no longer.
I had been chosen for the task because Seleukus had heard from my old
teacher, Bion, that I should get a faithful likeness of the original more
quickly than any one else. She may have said more, but I heard nothing;
I only saw. For when the veil no longer hid that face from my gaze, I
felt as though the gods had revealed a mystery to me which till now only
the immortals had been permitted to know. Never was my soul so steeped
in devotion, never had my heart beat in such solemn uplifting as at that
moment. What I was gazing at and had to represent was a thing neither
human nor divine; it was beauty itself--that beauty of which I have often
dreamed in blissful rapture.

"And yet--do not misapprehend me--I never thought of bewailing the
maiden, or grieving over her early death. She was but sleeping--I could
fancy: I watched one I loved in her slumbers. My heart beat high! Ay,
child, and the work I did was pure joy, such joy as only the gods on
Olympus know at their golden board. Every feature, every line was of
such perfection as only the artist's soul can conceive of, nay, even
dream of. The ecstasy remained, but my unrest gave way to an
indescribable and wordless bliss. I drew with the red chalk, and mixed
the colors with the grinder, and all the while I could not feel the
painful sense of painting a corpse. If she were slumbering, she had
fallen asleep with bright images in her memory. I even fancied again and
again that her lips moved her exquisitely chiseled mouth, and that a
faint breath played with her abundant, waving, shining brown hair, as it
does with yours.

"The Muse sped my hand and the portrait--Bion and the rest will praise
it, I think, though it is no more like the unapproachable original than
that lamp is like the evening star yonder."