It will always be easier, here, than in the city crowded East, for a man to be himself.

There is less of that spirit which is born of clubs and cliques and clans and schools--with their fine-spun theorizing, and their impudent assumption that they are divinely commissioned to sit in judgment.

There is less of artistic tea-drinking, esthetic posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for that loneliness out of which great art comes.

The atmosphere of these mountains and deserts and seas inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a clinging fast to the traditions and culture of others--and what, after all, _is_ a great artist, but one who greatly asserts himself ?" The younger man answered in a like vein; "Mr.Lagrange, your words recall to my mind a thought in one of mother's favorite books.

She quoted from the volume so often that, as a youngster, I almost knew it by heart, and, in turn, it became my favorite.