We had sat in the studio since just after dinner--a couple of us had not had any dinner either--and had talked, talked the whole time. We liked to talk, we had each and every one of us convictions and opinions so firm that they impressed all the others; yes, even ourselves, as we thought them over. Some had also a share of scepticism, which at suitable moments was still more impressive; and a couple simply kept quiet, which was almost the most impressive of all. To be really deeply silent under wide puffs of cigar smoke, with a broad back against the wall, and a large indolent glance out of wide-open eyes, which during the climax of a speaker are turned away in good-natured boredom--there is surely nothing in this realm of insolvent currency that is sounder and gives one longer credit. But now we were nearly all talking about nearly everything except politics and religion, for we had come past the years when one takes such things earnestly and had not come to the years when one takes them practically. Furthermore we had all read at least a couple of French novels and so had got over all naïveté. But we touched on the subject of hypnotism, very carefully with a general feeling that “there was something in it.” Literature we gripped by the throat and said rough things to her face, thrusting at her a word sharp as a needle, the word “style.” That was what she lacked, style. It is a splendid word, this; one can hide as much or as little as one will behind it, and as an accusation it is almost instantly condemnatory. And so we talked about pictures and busts and verse, of synthesis and analysis, of symbolism and realism. We were all idealists and wrapped ourselves in the very newest imperial robes with genuine spangles of brass. I don’t know exactly what we were driving at, the utterances were so varied, but it came out clearly from the total that we had the deuce knows what resources within us and were some day going to shake new artistic tendencies out of our sleeves as easily as the trick man does rabbits. Among some of us there was a general flair for the joy of living, which was taken up most seriously and discussed--a bit tediously--as a settled duty; how one should attain to it was left to one’s own free discretion and it was assumed that he who went to sleep over “Hans Alienus” had a satisfactory private reason for his conduct and might take up gymnastics instead. But above everything we were zealous for “the new”; we held our fingers on the pulse of the time with the solemnity of one who had universal pills to sell, and were only afraid that others would get ahead of us in guessing its complaints, or that these would change, since everything progresses so fast now.