Most of them felt as I, that music was most gripping in its effects. Marian, however, did not, since she is not at all musical. I spoke of words and intellectual ideas in relation to music. Virginia said it made her feel glad to hear music, that she had to beat time. The others all enjoy music most when it has a literary annotation, either in opera, or in concerts with verbal explanations. At least they want to know the name of every melody. In this I said I agreed with them, because knowing the name immediately put me into the mood the composer wished, and saved me those first five minutes of uncertainty which every strange music awakens. Henry said: “When I learn a new piece on the piano my teacher and I always talk it over. I have a piece called ‘Spring in the Wood.’ We say, ‘Now we are in the border of the wood, now we hear the water rippling far off, now there are the ferns at the edge.’” We spoke of painting. I explained to them the point of interest, the point around which all other lines, colors and interests must centre, to which all are made subordinate. Virginia said: “But it need not be in the centre of the picture.” “No,” I answered, “it had better not, since that would be monotonous and stiff. But wherever it is, it makes itself a centre, and makes the picture a complete whole.” Virginia told of the plan of completing the central figure in a sketch, and leaving the rest unfinished—as a substitute, as I showed her, for the effectiveness of color. All eyes should be directed to the central figure. I went into technical details of lines, angles and motion, with help from Virginia, to show how color might express mood and action, as well as did the figures, and so would make the whole harmonious. Virginia spoke of “curly clouds” in a picture of a burial, made at the art school, where the lines of the clouds were too gay, and spoiled the solemn effect of vertical lines. From balance of line we went on to balance of light and shade and color. First I explained to them—what most of them knew—the complementary colors, and the cycle of color; that a picture containing blue and orange, or green and red, has within itself all the color there is. Think of the hideousness of a blue and yellow or red and blue picture! “It would have to be toned down with the third color,” said Virginia. I spoke of the literary intrusion into painting, of the necessity of a complete idea in the picture itself; the difference between illustration and art. A picture may have an illustrative name, but if it be complete, beautiful and satisfying without any name, it is not illustration. What is excellent craftsmanship might be bad art.