MEN I HAVE PAINTED
And it is worthy of note that the Greeks had arrived at a knowledge of the value of repose, for action is rare in their Art. Nearly all their statues are presented in repose. The expression on the faces of their gods is placid. Passion was not permitted to distort the features. No matter how their literature may represent the gods to have been moved to anger, to hate, to love, or to jealousy, no faint trace of this must be allowed to distort their classic features, or produce an ungraceful curve in mouth or brow. A godlike serenity of countenance displays the calm which ought to reign within. In the Greek plays grief and despair are veiled from public view by drawing the robe across the face. Our modern actors seek the approbation of the audience by their skill in displaying fright and anger, and the Japanese are past-masters in working themselves by slow degrees into a white passion that ends by the most extravagant divergence of the eyes in their sockets, in writhings of the mouth, and other unpleasant symptoms of human degradation.
My recollections of John Taylor at the age of twenty years recall more vividly now than they impressed me at the time the peculiar similarity that he showed, not to any particular Greek character perhaps, but to the general Greek type, although the similarity was made more conspicuous by a quite unique resemblance to the Antinous in the regular character of the features, the shape of the head, and the growth of the hair. Resemblances between men have always interested me more than differences and contrasts: but one must confess that men, even of the same race, vary to a degree almost unbelievable, until specimens of the varieties are placed side by side. The misfortune is that men resemble each other more frequently in ugli-
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