possible, the fakirs
often remaining motionless for long periods at a time, and one of the
mediaeval saints going so far as to live on the top of a high column
where life and movement were well-nigh impossible.

And in art it is the same; all those who have aimed at an absolute
perfection have usually ended in a deadness. The Greeks knew better than
many of their imitators this vital necessity in art. In their most ideal
work there is always that variety that gives character and life. No
formula or canon of proportions or other mechanical device for the
attainment of perfection was allowed by this vital people entirely to
subdue their love of life and variety. And however near they might go
towards a perfect type in their ideal heads and figures, they never went
so far as to kill the individual in the type. It is the lack of this
subtle distinction that, I think, has been the cause of the failure of
so much art founded on so-called Greek ideals. Much Roman sculpture, if
you except their portrait busts, illustrates this. Compared with Greek
work it lacks that subtle variety in the modelling that gives vitality.
The difference can be felt instinctively in the merest fragment of a
broken figure. It is not difficult to tell Greek from Roman fragments,
they pulsate with a life that it is impossible to describe but that one
instinctively feels. And this vitality depends, I think it will be
found, on the greater amount of life-giving variety in the surfaces of
the modelling. In their architectural mouldings, the difference of which
we are speaking can be more easily traced. The vivacity and brilliancy
of a Greek moulding makes a Roman work look heavy and dull. And it will
generally be found that the Romans used the curve of the circle in the
sections of their mouldings, a curve possessing the least amount of
variety, as is explained later, where the Greeks used the lines of conic
sections, curves possessed of the greatest amount of variety.

But while unity must never exist without this life-giving variety,
variety must always be under the moral control of unity, or it will get
out of hand and become extravagant. In fact, the most perfect work, like
the most perfect engine of which we spoke in a former chapter, has the
least amount of variety, as the engine has the least amount of "dither,"
that is compatible with life. One does not hear so much talk in these
days about a perfect type as was the fashion at one time; and certa