down to a pace more in harmony with that peace which passeth all
understanding--unless you've a seat at the table.

The several masters of the outdoor school were now called up, their
merits discussed and their failings hammered: Thaulow, Sorolla y
Bastida, the new Spanish wonder, whose exhibition the month before
had astonished and delighted Paris: the Glasgow school; Zorn, Sargent,
Winslow Homer--all the men of the direct, forceful school, men who
swing their brushes from their spines instead of their finger-tips--were
slashed into and made mincemeat of or extolled to the skies. Then
the "patty-pats," with their little dabs of yellow, blue, and red,
in imitation of the master Monet; the "slick and slimies," and the
"woollies"--the men who essayed the vague, mysterious, and obscure--were
set up and knocked down one after the other, as is the custom with all
groups of painters the world over when the never-ending question of
technique is tossed into the middle of the arena.

Outdoor work next came into review and the discomforts and hardships
a painter must go through to get what he is after, the Man from the
Quarter defending the sit-by-the-fire fellows.

"No use making a submarine diver of yourself, Knight," he growled.
"Go and look at it and then come home and paint the impression and put
something of yourself into it."

Knight threw his head back and laughed. "I'd rather put the brook
in--all of it."

"But I don't see why you've got to get soaked to the skin every time you
want to make a sketch."

"The soaking is what helps," replied Knight, reaching for a match. "I
like to feel I'm drink-some of it in. Then, when you're right in the
middle of it you don't put on any airs and try to improve on what's
before you and spoil it with detail. One dimple on a girl's cheek is
charming; two--and you send for the doctor. And she's so simple when you
look into her face--I'm talking of the brook now, not the girl--and it's
so easy to put her down as she is, not the form and color only, but the
_mood_ in which you find her. A brook is worse, really, than your best
girl in the lightning changes she can go through--laughing, crying,
coquetting--just as the mood seizes her. There, for instance,
hanging over your head is a 'gray day"'--and he pointed to one of his
running-water sketches tacked to the wall. "I tried to cheer her up a
little with touches of warm tones here and there--all lies--same kind
you tell your own chicka