"It is the artist's business," said Logan, "to create out of the life around him an expression of it in form." "I agree," said Mendel. "Accurate imitation is not necessarily an expression, is it? You know it isn't. A picture must be a created thing. It must have a life of its own, and to have that it must grow through the artist's passion out of the life around him. It is all rubbish to look back, to talk of going back to the Primitives or the Byzantines or Egypt. You can learn a great deal from those old people about pictures, but you cannot learn how to paint your own pictures from them, because you can only live in your own life and your own time, and if you are a good artist your work will transcend both. . . . Now, tell me, where is the work that is expressing the glorious, many-coloured life of London, where is the work that does not give you a shock as you come to it out of the street, the thrilling, vibrant street, making you feel that you are stepping back ten, twenty, fifty years? . . . Why has life outstripped art?" "I don't know," said Mendel, whose head had begun to ache. "It has not only outstripped it," continued Logan. "It has begun to despise it." The postman knocked, and Mendel ran downstairs in feverish expectation of a letter from Morrison, to whom he had written imploring her to come again, or, if not, at least to let him have her address in the country. There was no letter for him, and as soon as he returned with a blank, disappointed face, Logan went on:-- "People collect pictures as they collect postage-stamps, to keep themselves from being bored. Naturally they despise pictures, and they despise us for accepting those conditions. They are intolerable, and we must make an end of them. We are in a tight corner, and we should leave no trick and twist and turn untried to get out of it. If we do not do so then there will be no art, as there is no drama, no music, and no literature, and there will be no authority among men, and humanity will go to hell. It is on the road to it, and the artists have got to stop it." Mendel had not heard a word. He sat with his head in his hands thinking of Morrison, and hating her for the blank misery in which she had plunged him. "Humanity," said Logan cheerfully, "is fast going to hell. It likes it; and, as the democratic idea is that it should have what it likes, not a finger, not a voice is raised to stop it. Everything that stands in the way--ideals, decency, responsibility, passion, love--everything is smashed. Nothing can stop it unless their eyes are opened and their poor frozen hearts are thawed." "What did you say?" asked Mendel, having half-caught that last phrase. "We must try to stop it," said Logan. "We may be smashed and swept aside, but we must try to stop it. . . . I've been to see Cluny to-day. He has sold all your things except one drawing."