ting places on the North Side. This lecture,
considered very radical at the time, was the direct outcome of several
years of study and battle in Boston in support of the open-air school of
painting, a school which was astonishing the West with its defiant play
of reds and yellows, and the flame of its purple shadows. As a
missionary in the interest of the New Art, I rejoiced in this
opportunity to advance its inspiring heresies.

While uttering my shocking doctrines (entrenched behind a broad,
book-laden desk), my eyes were attracted to the face of a slender
black-bearded young man whose shining eyes and occasional smiling nod
indicated a joyous agreement with the main points of my harangue. I had
never seen him before, but I at once recognized in him a fellow
conspirator against "The Old Hat" forces of conservatism in painting.

At the close of my lecture he drew near and putting out his hand, said,
"My name is Taft--Lorado Taft. I am a sculptor, but now and again I talk
on painting. Impressionism is all very new here in the West, but like
yourself I am an advocate of it, I am doing my best to popularize a
knowledge of it, and I hope you will call upon me at my studio some
afternoon--any afternoon and discuss these isms with me."

Young Lorado Taft interested me, and I instantly accepted his invitation
to call, and in this way (notwithstanding a wide difference in training
and temperament), a friendship was established which has never been
strained even in the fiercest of our esthetic controversies. Many others
of the men and women I met that night became my co-workers in the
building of the "greater Chicago," which was even then coming into
being--the menace of the hyphenate American had no place in our
thoughts.

In less than a month I fell into a routine as regular, as peaceful, as
that in which I had moved in Boston. Each morning in my quiet sunny room
I wrote, with complete absorption, from seven o'clock until noon,
confidently composing poems, stories, essays, and dramas. I worked like
a painter with several themes in hand passing from one to the other as I
felt inclined. After luncheon I walked down town seeking exercise and
recreation. It soon became my habit to spend an hour or two in Taft's
studio (I fear to his serious detriment), and in this way I soon came to
know most of the "Bunnies" of "the Rabbit-Warren" as Henry B. Fuller
characterized this studio building--and it well deserved the name! Art
was y