A Portrait-study (16)

Polystratus I proceed then to the delineation of Culture, the confessed mistress of all mental excellences, particularly of all acquired ones: I must render her features in all their manifold variety; not even here shall my portraiture be inferior to your own. I paint her, then, with every grace that Helicon can give. Each of the Muses has but her single accomplishment, be it tragedy or history or hymn: all these Culture shall have, and with them the gifts of Hermes and of Apollo, The poet’s graceful numbers, the orator’s persuasive power, the

historian’s learning, the sage’s counsel, all these shall be her adornments; the colours shall be imperishable, and laid on with no niggardly brush. It is not my fault, if I am unable to point to any classical model for the portrait: the records of antiquity afford no precedent for a culture so highly developed.—May I hang this beside the other? I think it is a passable likeness.

Lycinus Passable! My dear Polystratus, it is sublime; exquisitely finished in every line.