He went to our heads. We four, who saw and heard him, left Mr. Freer's house drunk with the esthetic. Even the flooding knowledge of our own barbarian ignorance was not enough to sober us. Some of the flame had gotten into us. It was like old brandy. We waved our arms and cried out about art. For there is in a truly big human being--especially in one old enough to have seemed to gain perspective on the universe--some quality which touches something in us that nothing else can ever reach. It is something which is not admiration only, nor vague longing to emulate, nor a quickened comprehension of the immensity of things; something emotional and spiritual and strange and indescribable which seems to set our souls to singing. The Freer collection will go, ultimately, to the Smithsonian Institution (the National Gallery) in Washington, a fact which is the cause of deep regret to many persons in Detroit, more especially since the City Plan and Improvement Commission has completed arrangements for a Center of Arts and Letters--a fine group plan which will assemble and give suitable setting to a new Museum of Art, Public Library, and other buildings of like nature, including a School of Design and an Orchestra Hall. The site for the new gallery of art was purchased with funds supplied by public-spirited citizens, and the city has given a million dollars toward the erection of the building. Plans for the library have been drawn by Cass Gilbert. It seems possible that, had the new art museum been started sooner, and with some guarantee of competent management, Mr. Freer might have considered it as an ultimate repository for his treasures. But now it is too late. That the present art museum--the old one--was not to be considered by him, is perfectly obvious. Inside and out it is unworthy. It looks as much like an old waterworks as the new waterworks out on Jefferson Avenue looks like a museum. Its foyer contains some sculptured busts, forming the most amazing group I have ever seen. The group represents, I take it, prominent citizens of Detroit--among them, according to my recollection, the following: Hermes, Augustus Cæsar, Mr. Bela Hubbard, Septimus Severus, the Hon. T. W. Palmer, Mr. Frederick Stearns, Apollo, Demosthenes, and the Hon. H. P. Lillibridge. I do not want to put things into people's heads, but--the old museum is not fire-proof. God speed the new one! CHAPTER VII THE MÆCENAS OF THE MOTOR