"Everything," she explained, "is one monstrous, gaudy, and brutal impression to me. I see a million colors in everything and very little shape to anything. I see only cosmic vigor; and I paint it with a punch. Can't you see all those colors in those haystacks? To me they resemble gigantic explosions of glorious color. And really, Mr. Warner, if I am to be true to myself, I must paint them as I see them."
Warner, horribly discouraged, talked sanely to her for a while, then with a pleasant nod he passed to the next easel, remarking to Halkett under his breath:
"It's a case for a pathologist, not for a painter."
And so for an hour he prowled about among the Harem, ministering to neurotics, inspiring the sluggish, calming despair, gently discouraging self-complacency.
"Always," he said, "we must remain students, because there is no such thing as mastery in any art. If ever we believe we have attained mastery, then our progress ceases; and we do not even remain where we are; we retrograde—and swiftly, too.
"The life work of the so-called 'master' is passed only in solving newer problems. There is no end to the problems, there is an end only to our lives.
"Look at the matter in that way, not as a race toward an attainable goal, nor as an eternally hopeless effort in a treadmill; but as a sane and sure and intelligent progress from one wonder-chamber to a chamber still more wonderful—locked rooms which contain miracles, and which open only when we find the various keys which fit their locks....
"That is all for this morning, young ladies."
He lifted his hat, turned, and strolled away across the meadow, Halkett at his side.
"Some lecture!" he commented with a faint grin.