These words, which so far as the tone was concerned, formed a somewhat inharmonious termination to a speech intended for the ears of great artists, were addressed to his wife’s four-footed Graces who had followed him against his wish, and were leaping round the table barking for the slender remains of the consumed food.
Pontius was fond of animals and had made friends with the old woman’s pets, so, as he opened the prefect’s letter, he said:
“I invite the three little guests to the remains of our feast. Give them anything that is fit for them, Euphorion, and whatever seems to you most suitable to your own stomach you may put into it.”
While the architect first rapidly glanced through the letter and then read it carefully, the singer had collected a variety of good morsels for his wife’s favorites on a plate, and finally carried the last remaining pasty, with the dish on which it reposed, to the vicinity of his own hooked nose.
“For men or for dogs?” he asked his son, as he pointed to it with a rigid finger.
“For the gods!” replied Pollux. “Take it to mother; she will like to eat ambrosia for once.”
“A jolly evening to you!” cried the singer, bowing to the artists who were emptying their cups, and he quitted the hall with his pasty and his dogs. Before he had fairly left the hall with his long strides, Papias, whose speech had been interrupted, once more raised his wine-cup and began again:
“Our Deucalion, our more than Deucalion—”
“Pardon me,” interrupted Pontius. “If I once more stop your discourse which began so promisingly; this letter contains important news and our revels must be over for the night. We must postpone our symposium and your drinking-speech.”
“It was not a drinking-speech, for if ever there was a moderate man—” Papias began. But Pontius stopped him again, saying:
“Titianus writes me word that he proposes coming to Lochias this evening. He may arrive at any moment; and not alone, but with my fellow-artist, Claudius Venator from Rome, who is to assist me with his advice.”
“I never even heard his name,” said Papias, who was wont to trouble himself as little about the persons as about the works of other artists.
“I wonder at that,” said Pontius, closing the double tablets which announced the Emperor’s advent.
“Can he do anything?” asked Pollux.
“More than any one of us,” replied Pontius. “He is a mighty man.”
“That is splendid!” exclaimed Pollux. “I like to see great men. When one looks me in the eye I always feel as if some of his superabundance overflowed into me, and irresistibly I draw myself up and think how fine it would be if one day I might reach as high as that man’s chin.”
“Beware of morbid ambition,” said Papias to his pupil in a warning voice. “It is not the man who stands on tiptoe, but he who does his duty diligently, that can attain anything great.”
“He honestly does his,” said the architect rising, and he laid his hand on the young sculptor’s shoulder. “We all do; to-morrow by sunrise each must be at his post again. For my colleague’s sake it will be well that you should all be there in good time.”
The artists rose, expressing their thanks and regrets. “You will not escape the continuation of this evening’s entertainment,” cried one of the painters, and Papias, as he parted from Pontius, said:
“When we next meet I will show you what I understand by a drinking-speech. It will do perhaps for your Roman guest. I am curious to hear what he will say about our Urania. Pollux has done his share of the work very well, and I have already devoted an hour’s work to it, which has improved it. The more humble our material, the better I shall be pleased if the work satisfies Caesar; he himself has tried his hand at sculpture.”
“If only Hadrian could hear that!” cried one of the painters. “He likes to think himself a great artist—one of the foremost of our time. It is said that he caused the life of the great architect, Apollodorus—who carried out such noble works for Trajan—to be extinguished—and why? because formerly that illustrious man had treated the imperial bungler as a mere dabbler, and would not accept his plan for the temple of Venus at Rome.”
“Mere talk!” answered Pontius to this accusation. “Apollodorus died in prison, but his incarceration had little enough to do with the Emperor’s productions—excuse me, gentlemen, I must once more look through the sketches and plans.”
The architect went away, but Pollux continued the conversation that had been begun by saying:
“Only I cannot understand how a man who practises so many arts at once as Hadrian does, and at the same time looks after the state and its government, who is a passionate huntsman and who dabbles in every kind of miscellaneous learning, contrives, when he wants to practise one particular form of art, to recall all his five senses into the nest from which he has let them fly, here, there, and everywhere. The inside of his head must be like that salad-bowl—which we have reduced to emptiness—in which Papias discovered three sorts of fish, brown and white meat, oysters and five other substances.”
“And who can deny,” added Papias, “that if talent is the father, and meat the mother of all productiveness, practice must be the artist’s teacher! Since Hadrian took to sculpture and painting it has become the universal fashion here to practise these arts, and among the wealthier youth who come to my workroom, many have very good abilities; but not one of them brings anything to any good issue, because so much of their time is taken up by the gymnasium, the bath, the quail-fights, the suppers, and I know not what besides, so that they do nothing by way of practice.”
“True,” said a painter. “Without the restraint and worry of apprenticeship no one can ever rise to happy and independent creativeness; and in the schools of rhetoric or in hunting or fighting no one can study drawing. It is not till a pupil has learned to sit steady and worry himself over his work for six hours on end that I begin to believe he will ever do any good work. Have you any of you seen the Emperor’s work?”
“I have,” answered a mosaic worker. “Many years ago Hadrian sent a picture to me that he had painted; I was to make a mosaic from it. It was a fruit piece. Melons, gourds, apples, and green leaves. The drawing was but so-so, and the color impossibly vivid, still the composition was pleasing from its solidity and richness. And after all, when one sees it, one cannot but feel that such superfluity is better than meagreness and feebleness. The larger fruits, especially under the exuberant sappy foliage, were so huge that they might have been grown in the garden of luxury itself, still the whole had a look of reality. I mitigated the colors somewhat in my transcript; you may still see a copy of the picture at my house, it hangs in the studio where my men draw. Nealkes, the rich hanging-maker, has had a tapestry woven from it which Pontius proposes to use as a hanging for a wall of the work-room, but I have made a fine frame on purpose for it.”
“Say rather for its designer.”
“Or yet rather,” added the most loquacious of the painters, “for the visit he may possibly pay your workshops.”
“I only wish the Emperor may come to ours too! I should like to sell him my picture of Alexander saluted by the priests in the temple of Jupiter Ammon.”
“I hope that when you agree about the price you will remember we are partners,” said his fellow-artist smugly.
“I will follow your example strictly,” replied the other.
“Then you will certainly not be a loser,” cried Papias, “for Eustorgius is fully aware of the worth of his works. And if Hadrian is to order works from every master whose art he dabbles in, he will require a fleet on purpose to carry his purchases to Rome.”
“It is said,” continued Eustorgius, laughing, “that he is a painter among poets, a sculptor among painters, an astronomer among musicians, and a sophist among artists—that is to say, that he pursues every art and science with some success as his secondary occupation.”
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