Many things reached him too late, and others too soon." Daphne eagerly asked what he meant by these words, and Myrtilus replied: "Surely you know how he became a sculptor.

Your father had intended him to be his successor in business, but Hermon felt the vocation to become an artist--probably first in my studio--awake with intense force.

While I early placed myself under the instruction of the great Bryaxis, he was being trained for a merchant's life.

When he was to guide the reed in the counting-house, he sketched; when he was sent to the harbour to direct the loading of the ships, he became absorbed in gazing at the statues placed there.

In the warehouse he secretly modelled, instead of attending to the bales of goods.