170.  But, secondly, Greek art is always exemplary in disposition of masses, which is a thing that in modern days students rarely look for, artists not enough, and the public never.  But, whatever else Greek work may fail of, you may always be sure its masses are well placed, and their placing has been the object of the most subtle care.  Look, for instance, at the inscription in front of this Hercules of the name of the town—­ Camarina.  You can’t read it, even though you may know Greek, without some pains; for the sculptor knew well enough that it mattered very little whether you read it or not, for the Camarina Hercules could tell his own story; but what did above all things matter was, that no K or A or M should come in a wrong place with respect to the outline of the head, and divert the eye from it, or spoil any of its lines.  So the whole inscription is thrown into a sweeping curve of gradually diminishing size, continuing from the lion’s paws, round the neck, up to the forehead, and answering a decorative purpose as completely as the curls of the mane opposite.  Of these, again, you cannot change or displace one without mischief; they are almost as even in reticulation as a piece of basket-work; but each has a different form and a due relation to the rest, and if you set to work to draw that mane rightly, you will find that, whatever time you give to it, you can’t get the tresses quite into their places, and that every tress out of its place does an injury.  If you want to test your powers of accurate drawing, you may make that lion’s mane your pons asinorum, I have never yet met with a student who didn’t make an ass in a lion’s skin of himself when he tried it.

171.  Granted, however, that these tresses may be finely placed, still they are not like a lion’s mane.  So we come back to the question,—­if the face is to be like a man’s face, why is not the lion’s mane to be like a lion’s mane?  Well, because it can’t be like a lion’s mane without too much trouble,—­and inconvenience after that, and poor success, after all.  Too much trouble, in cutting the die into fine fringes and jags; inconvenience after that,—­because, though you can easily stamp cheeks and foreheads smooth at a blow, you can’t stamp projecting tresses fine at a blow, whatever pains you take with your die.

So your Greek uses his common sense, wastes no time, uses no skill, and says to you, “Here is beautifully set tresses, which I have carefully designed and easily stamped.  Enjoy them, and if you cannot understand that they mean lion’s mane, heaven mend your wits.”

172.  See, then, you have in this work well-founded knowledge, simple and right aims, thorough mastery of handicraft, splendid invention in arrangement, unerring common sense in treatment,—­merits, these, I think, exemplary enough to justify our tormenting you a little with Greek art.  But it has one merit more than these, the greatest of all.  It always means something worth saying.  Not merely worth