_Ly_. I think my best way out of it will be to call in the aid of some of the old masters I have named: let them fashion the likeness for me. _Poly_. Well, but—will they come? They have been dead so long. _Ly_. That is easily managed: but you must not mind answering me a few questions. _Poly_. You have but to ask. _Ly_. Were you ever at Cnidus? _Poly_. I was. _Ly_. Then you have seen the _Aphrodite_, of course? _Poly_. That masterpiece of Praxiteles’s art! I have. _Ly_. And heard the story they tell there,—of the man who fell in love with the statue, and contrived to get shut into the temple alone, and there enjoyed such favours as a statue is able to bestow.—But that is neither here nor there.—You have seen the Cnidian _Aphrodite_, anyhow; now I want to know whether you have also seen our own _Aphrodite of the Gardens_,—the Alcamenes. _Poly_. I must be a dullard of dullards, if that most exquisite of Alcamenes’s works had escaped my notice. _Ly_. I forbear to ask whether in the course of your many visits to the Acropolis you ever observed the _Sosandra_ of Calamis. [Footnote: This statue is usually identified with one of Aphrodite by the same sculptor, mentioned in Pausanias. Soteira (‘saviour’) is known as an epithet of Aphrodite: but Sosandra (‘man-saving’) is explained as a nickname of the particular statue, in playful allusion to Callias, the donor, who was apparently indebted to Aphrodite for his success with a certain Elpinice.] _Poly_. Frequently. _Ly_. That is really enough for my purpose. But I should just like to know what you consider to be Phidias’s best work. _Poly_. Can you ask?—The Lemnian _Athene_, which bears the artist’s own signature; oh, and of course the _Amazon_ leaning on her spear. _Ly_. I approve your judgement. We shall have no need of other artists: I am now to cull from each of these its own peculiar beauty, and combine all in a single portrait. _Poly_. And how are you going to do that? _Ly_. It is quite simple. All we have to do is to hand over our several types to Reason, whose care it must be to unite them in the most harmonious fashion, with due regard to the consistency, as to the variety, of the result. _Poly_. To be sure; let Reason take her materials and begin. What will she make of it, I wonder? Will she contrive to put all these different types together without their clashing?