But I do not paint these things which my eye sees. I paint that which my brain, my soul, sees. I walk from the Battery to Central Park. I mingle with your workers, and your Fifth Avenue mondaines. My brain gets the impression of each movement; there is the driving hurry of the former, their breathless haste to reach the place of their work in the morning and their equal haste to reach their homes at night. There is the languid grace of the latter, emanating a subtle perfume, a more subtle sensuousness. I hear every language in the world spoken, the staccato of the New Yorker, the soft cadences of the Latin people, the heavy rumble of the Teuton, and the ensemble remains in my soul as the ensemble of some great opera. At night from your harbor I look at your mammoth buildings. I see your city as a city of aerial lights and shadows; the streets are your shadows. Your harbor in the daylight shows the shipping [Illustration: HERBIN Landscape] of a world, the flags of all countries add their color to that given by your sky, your waters, and your painted craft of every size. I absorb these impressions. I am in no hurry to put them on canvas. I let them remain in my brain, and then when the spirit of creation is at flood-tide, I improvise my pictures as a musician improvises music. The harmonies of my studies grow and take form under my brush, as the musician’s harmonies grow under his fingers. His music is from his brain and his soul just as my studies are from my brain and soul. Is this not clear to you? * * * * * You say all this cannot be done. That is precisely the question, and one thing certain, it cannot and will not be done, unless some one _tries_ to do it. It is just as legitimate to attempt to express one’s emotions by the use of line and color as by the use of sound as in music, or by the use of motion as in pantomime. One man says, “I will paint the portrait of a beautiful woman.” A second says, “I will not paint her portrait, but I will put on canvas a composition of colors so joyous it will express my admiration for her.” A third says, “I will compose a sonata or a symphony or a ‘song without words’ to express my love for her.” The public accepts without question the work of the first and third--the portrait painter and the musician--but rejects the work of the second--the painter of harmonies. Why? Because he does not copy the features and the dress of the woman. Picabia again says: