Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/13

 my uncle I was sent. I did not at all object to it myself: I thought I should find the work amusing enough, and be very proud when I could show my playmates how I could make gods, and cut out other little figures for myself and my special friends. But an accident happened to me, as is not uncommon with beginners. My uncle put a chisel in my hand, and bid me work it lightly over a slab of marble that lay in the shop, quoting at the same time the common proverb, 'Well begun is half done.' But, leaning too hard upon it, in my awkwardness, the slab broke; and my uncle, seizing a whip that lay at hand, made me pay my footing in no very gentle or encouraging fashion; so the first wages I earned were tears."

"I ran off straight home, sobbing and howling, with the tears running down my cheeks. I told them there all about the whip, and showed the wheals; and with loud complaints of my uncle's cruelty, I added that he had done it all out of envy,—because he was afraid I should soon make a better artist than himself. My mother was extremely indignant, and vented bitter reproaches against her brother."

Of course, with the mother in such mood, we readily understand that young Lucian never went back to the shop. "I went to sleep," he says, "with my eyes full of tears, and that very night I had a dream." This dream, which the author goes on to relate, is a reproduction, adapted to suit the circumstances, of the well-known "Choice of Hercules." How far Lucian