Uncle Richard
Don't mention it. And of course you can see to its proper arrangement yourself.
Richard
I had no idea of this when I came and—but you see, it's not only the studio an artist requires, it's atmosphere, the atmosphere of enthusiasm and feeling. You might as well give a business man a brand new office equipment and turn him loose on the Sahara desert as to shut a painter up in a town like this and expect him to create. Artists need atmosphere just as business men need banks. It's the meeting of like forces that makes anything really go.
Uncle Richard
But we are not wholly barbarous here, Richard. This, for example, and no first-class New England city lacks culture.
Richard
I suppose there's no use explaining, but what first-class New England cities regard as culture your real artist avoids as he would avoid poison.
Uncle Richard
Well, well. But circumstances—really, Richard, don't you think it your duty to stay?