al. The Siren Ligeia, and fountain of Arethusa, on the
coins of Terina and Syracuse, are prettier, but totally without
expression, and chiefly set off by their well-curled hair. You might
have expected something subtle in Mercuries; but the Mercury of AEnus is
a very stupid-looking fellow, in a cap like a bowl, with a knob on the
top of it. The Bacchus of Thasos is a drayman with his hair pomatum'd.
The Jupiter of Syracurse is, however, calm and refined; and the Apollo
of Clazomenae would have been impressive, if he had not come down to us,
much flattened by friction. But on the whole, the merit of Greek coins
does not primarily depend on beauty of features, nor even, in the period
of highest art, that of the statues. You make take the Venus of Melos as
a standard of beauty of the central Greek type. She has tranquil,
regular, and lofty features; but could not hold her own for a moment
against the beauty of a simple English girl, of pure race and kind heart.

168. And the reason that Greek art, on the whole, bores you (and you
know it does), is that you are always forced to look in it for something
that is not there; but which may be seen every day, in real life, all
round you; and which you are naturally disposed to delight in, and ought
to delight in. For the Greek race was not at all one of exalted beauty,
but only of general and healthy completeness of form. They were only,
and could be only, beautiful in body to the degree that they were
beautiful in soul (for you will find, when you read deeply into the
matter, that the body is only the soul made visible). And the Greeks
were indeed very good people, much better people than most of us think,
or than many of us are; but there are better people alive now than the
best of them, and lovelier people to be seen now than the loveliest of
them.

169. Then what are the merits of this Greek art, which make it so
exemplary for you? Well, not that it is beautiful, but that it is
Right.* All that it desires to do, it does, and all that it does, does
well. You will find, as you advance in the knowledge of art, that its
laws of self-restraint are very marvelous; that its peace of heart, and
contentment in doing a simple thing, with only one or two qualities,
restrictedly desired, and sufficiently attained, are a most wholesome
element of education for you, as opposed to the wild writhing, and
wrestling, and longing for the moon, and tilting at windmills, and agony