“I only wished that you might do so,” answered Myrtilus; “for they are not powerless to those who from the first assumed that they can do nothing in opposition to those changeless laws.  The state, too, rules according to them, and the wise king who refrains from interfering with them in the smallest trifle can therefore wield the sceptre with mighty power.  So, in my opinion, it is perfectly allowable to expect aid from the gods.  But we will let that pass.  A healthy man, full of exuberant vigour like yourself, rarely learns early what they can bestow in suffering and misfortune; yet where the great majority believe in them, he, too, will be unable to help forming some idea of them; nay, even you and I have experienced it.  By a thousand phenomena they force themselves into the world which surrounds us and our emotional life.  Epicurus, who denied their power, saw in them at least immortal beings who possess in stainless perfection everything which in mortals is disfigured by errors, weaknesses, and afflictions.  To him they are the intensified, reflected image of our own nature, and I think we can do nothing wiser than to cling to that, because it shows us to what heights of beauty and power, intellect, goodness, and purity we may attain.  To completely deny their existence would hardly be possible even for you, because their persons have found a place in your imagination.  Since this is the case, it can only benefit you to recognise in them magnificent models, by whose means we artists, if we imitate, perfect, and model them, will create works far more sublime and beautiful than anything visible to our senses which we meet here beneath the sun.”

“It is this very superiority in sublimity and beauty which I, and those who pursue the same path with me, oppose,” replied Hermon.  “Nature is sufficient for us.  To take anything from her, mutilates; to add anything, disfigures her.”

“But not,” replied Myrtilus firmly, “when it is done only in a special sense, and within the limits of Nature, to which the gods also belong.  The final task of art, fiercely as you and your few followers contend against it, lies in the disentanglement, enhancing, and ennobling of Nature.  You, too, ought not to overlook it when you undertake to model a Demeter; for she is a goddess, no mortal like yourself.  The rest or I ought rather to say the alteration which converts the mortal woman into the immortal one, the goddess—­I miss, and with special regret, because you do not even deem it worth consideration.”

“That I shall never do,” retorted Hermon irritably, “so long as it is a changing chimera which presents itself differently to every mind.”

“Yet, should it really be a chimera, it is at any rate a sublime one,” Myrtilus protested, “and whoever among us artists wanders through Nature with open eyes and heart, and then examines his own soul, will find it worth while to attempt to give his ideal form.”