Note 114 — ESSAYS. (continued 2)

It is a pity that this anecdote has come down to us bald as it is, because it seems to infer that the lowest kind of excellence was what these great men aimed at, that is, mere deceptive imitation. But we should remark that we have not the writings of a single painter or artist of any kind preserved, and that the relators of the story were notoriously ignorant of art. It is impossible that the painter of the Helen of Agrigentum, and he who conceived the Demos of Athens, could have had such narrow views of art.