Page:Lucian, Vol 3.djvu/235

father envied, and cause your native land to be admired?“

Sculpture said all this, and even more than this, with a great deal of stumbling and bad grammar, talking very hurriedly and trying to convince me: I do not remember it all, however, for most of it has escaped my memory by this time.

When she stopped, the other began after this fashion:

My child, I am Education, with whom you are already acquainted and familiar, even if you have not yet completed your experience of me. What it shall profit you to become a sculptor, this woman has told you; you will be nothing but a labourer, toiling with your body and putting in it your entire hope of a livelihood, personally inconspicuous, getting meagre and illiberal returns, humble-witted, an insignificant figure in public, neither sought by your friends nor feared by your enemies nor envied by your fellow-citizens — nothing but just a labourer, one of the swarming rabble, ever cringing to the man above you and courting the man who can use his tongue, leading a hare’s life, and counting as a godsend to anyone stronger. Even if you should become a Phidias or a Polycleitus and should create many marvellous works, everyone would praise your craftsmanship, to be sure, but none of those who saw you, if he were sensible, would pray to be like you; for no matter what you might be, you would be considered a mechanic, a man who has naught but his hands, a man who lives by his hands.

“If you follow my advice, first of all I shall show you many works of men of old, tell you their