Imagines

Philostratus · Arthur Fairbanks

Let us not deprive the arts of their chance to be kept up for ever, on the ground that we think the earlier period hard to match; and let us not, just because we have been anticipated in any undertaking by some writer of former time, refrain from emulating his work to the best of our ability, using a specious pretext with which to gloss over our indolence; but let us rather challenge our predecessor for, if we attain our goal, we shall accomplish something worth while; but if at any point we fail, at least we shall do ourselves the credit of showing that we strive for the noble ends we praise. Why have I made this prelude? A certain description of works in the field of painting was written with much learning by one whose name I bear, my mother’s father, in very pure Attic Greek and with extreme beauty and force. Desiring to follow in his footsteps we felt obliged before setting out on …

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• Arthur Fairbanks (this edition) — read
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