y in life as a reward."

The bird repeated its lamentable cry, "My strength!" and the youth
proceeded with increased vehemence:

"It would really be better that you should throw your vice and your
graver and your burnisher, and all that heap of dainty tools, into the
sea, and carve an Atlas such as we have heard you talk about ever since
we could first speak Greek. Come, set to work on a colossus! You have but
to speak the word, and the finest clay shall be ready on your
modeling-table by to-morrow, either here or in Glaukias's work-room,
which is indeed your own. I know where the best is to be found, and can
bring it to you in any quantity. Scopas will lend me his wagon. I can see
it now, and you valiantly struggling with it till your mighty arms ache.
You will not whistle and hum over that, but sing out with all your might,
as you used when my mother was alive, when you and your apprentices
joined Dionysus's drunken rout. Then your brow will grow smooth again;
and if the model is a success, and you want to buy marble, or pay the
founder, then out with your gold, out of the coffer and its hiding-place!
Then you can make use of all your strength, and your dream of producing
an Atlas such as the world has not seen--your beautiful dream-will become
a reality!"

Heron had listened eagerly to his son's rhapsody, but he now cast a timid
glance at the table where the wax and tools lay, pushed the rough hair
from his brow, and broke in with a bitter laugh: "My dream, do you
say--my dream? As if I did not know too well that I am no longer the man
to create an Atlas! As if I did not feel, without your words, that my
strength for it is a thing of the past!"

"Nay, father," exclaimed the painter. "Is it right to cast away the sword
before the battle? And even if you did not succeed--"

"You would be all the better pleased," the sculptor put in. "What surer
way could there be to teach the old simpleton, once for all, that the
time when he could do great work is over and gone?"

"That is unjust, father; that is unworthy of you," the young man
interrupted in great excitement; but his father went on, raising his
voice; "Silence, boy! One thing at any rate is left to me, as you
know--my keen eyes; and they did not fail me when you two looked at each
other as the starling cried, 'My strength!' Ay, the bird is in the right
when he bewails what was once so great and is now a mere laughing-stock.
But you--you ought to reverence the m