“Why do all you men of the Cornish school paint alike?” (They were all painters who had studied in France and learned their trade.) “We use the same model,” answered Forbes. “Ah, that’s it! Who is she?” “Nature.” Seeing this colony form in St. Ives made me study out how such things happen. The artist finds a place that is beautiful, undiscovered, and suits his pocketbook. He goes there for two years. The third year other artists follow him; the fourth year come the retired British admirals and “vamps”; the fifth year the artist leaves; the sixth come the wealthy people who spend a lot of money on it, making it as ugly and dear as possible, but soon tire and go away. Then the artist comes back again and begins all over, picking the bones of what the Money Bags had killed. The home of Leslie Stephen, in St. Ives, was the gathering place for all sorts of interesting persons. He married Thackeray’s daughter, knew many notables, and was the biographer of most of them. He entertained such men as E. W. Gosse, the critic and brother-in-law of Alma Tadema, the famous painter of finished Greek subjects. It always seemed to me so extraordinary to see one of his Greek slaves with manicured toenails, leaning up against a marble column upon which you could see the polish, with a truly Bostonian expression on her face! Curious to say, I met Lowell here, and, although he immediately called me “Edward” and spoke of my mother as “Mary,” I did not remember him at Concord, and was ignorant enough not to know much about his work. One day Stephen remarked that music, like eating, should be done in the bathroom. It always sounded to him like an infernal din. He was the ultra-literary type, who wished to be rid of all things physical; he even envied Harriet Martineau, who had no sense of taste. Lowell said: “Edward, this foolish friend of mine really has some excellent Scotch whisky. Come away with me. If you listen to him you will surely be contaminated.” Mental corruption for a young man was much worse in his opinion than teaching him to drink Scotch whisky. I remember walking with Lowell and my uncle when the conversation drifted to walking sticks. My uncle said he had cut his on the grave of Wordsworth. I sniffed and said it was not half so good a stick as mine and that if it had been cut on the grave of Shakespeare it would have no added value for me. Lowell turned and said: “My boy, you are like most of the great men of the world—lacking in one quality, that of deference—and _all_ the fools.” Considering that I had heard of this poet in his youth, marching through the streets of Cambridge with the young woman to whom he was betrothed, draped in white, with wreaths upon their heads, and the people in the procession cheering, as a tribute to virginity, I could not help but think: Is it better, I wonder, for a young man to be lacking in deference or a sense of humor?