To one who said "You're a Prometheus in words." (3)

Yet someone might console me by saying “It was not in these respects that he compared you to Prometheus. No, he was praising your originality in following no exemplar, just as Prometheus at a time when no men existed fashioned them from his imagination, when he gave shape and form to such living creatures that they might move easily and be graceful to see. He was the master-craftsman, though Athena helped by breathing into the mud and

making the models live.” That is what he might say, putting at least a gracious interpretation on your words, and perhaps that was what you meant. Yet I am not at all satisfied to be thought an innovator with no older model to father this work of mine. No, if it were not thought graceful as well, I should certainly be ashamed of it, believe me, and trample it under foot and destroy it. The originality would be no help, as far as I am concerned, to prevent the ugly thing’s being obliterated. If I didn’t think this, I should consider it right to have sixteen vultures tear me for not understanding how much uglier are the things which suffer this when they are combined with novelty.