One day in Mr. Story’s studio, in Europe, was a group of American business men who always made it more or less one of their loafing places. Of course, they had all been well bred enough to wander around and see what the old man had been working at lately, but it was not long before they were settled down over their cigars, discussing the business of stocks and bonds—what they were all thinking about and all they really cared about. Story stood it as long as he could, walking nervously up and down in silence. Finally he whirled, saying: “Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, Phidias built the Parthenon. Who in hell were the stockholders?” After my graduation, it was a question of a career. I had spent four years to find out that I did not know anything, and was to spend three more to find out what I wanted to do. All my ancestors had lived by talk. I had inherited the “gift of gab,” but there seemed to be no market for it in my generation. It had turned from the pulpit to the stage and novels, in order to get an audience. Rhetoric and fiery oratory is not an honest way to teach, as it hypnotizes the listeners. Reading a speech coolly the next morning in the newspaper is the only fair way to judge it. My father felt this and changed his preaching into a dry, matter-of-fact style, not caring to influence by his personality. He immediately lost his audience. Groping for an occupation, I went to New York and, with a half-formulated idea to become an architect, called on Russel Sturgis. He was a blond-headed young man, about thirty-five, and seemed to me to be quite old and efficient. Looking at me very keenly, he said: “Do you know anything about the bearing power of bricks?” “No.” “Do you care anything?” “No.” “Have you any rich relatives to back you?” “No.” “You don’t want to be an architect. You want to be a painter.” This quite astonished me, for I rather thought I did, although I had never formulated the desire in my mind. Besides, to be a painter was not an occupation—but rather on par with a strolling player, a tinker, or a mountebank. Mr. Sturgis told me that my ideas were all wrong and that the painters of the day were real people and, furthermore, making a lot of money. Of course, I could not start in then, but resolved to hold the thought in the back of my mind. In the meantime, my New England coat was feeling so tight as almost to burst the seams if I did not get out of it. I wanted to get away from something. I knew not what. But freedom lay away from home, so, starting out with two hundred and fifty dollars, I went as far as I dared, which was Cincinnati, Ohio.