“Too much gloom and terror is associated with death,” he said. “It is sad to lose our dear ones, but beyond that death is not to be feared.” He pointed to a picture he calls “The Messenger.” “I wish that picture to be understood by all people, not merely by Christians. The picture should tell its story to the Jew or the Mohammedan equally well.” The Messenger is a queenly figure, slow and stately, advancing towards a dying woman on a couch. “The Court of Death”, an enormous canvas just sketched in, is fine in composition and thought. Death, the same majestic figure, sits enthroned; below her is an altar. In the foreground a cripple brings his crutch to lay upon the shrine, a king casts his crown upon it. A soldier, a superb figure of a man standing with his back towards the spectator, throws down his sword. A girl sits at Death’s feet; the drapery of the seated figure flows into a winding sheet about her. In the lap of Death lies a young child, suggesting the new birth into the other life. Behind on either side stands a tall angel guarding the door that opens into the mystery beyond. “Too many young men and women are taking up art as a career to-day,” Watts declared. “Any boy who has a little facility with brush or pencil is praised and petted into believing he is an artist. An artist must dress well and must appear as a gentleman should. If he has a wife and children, he must have a comfortable house for them. Many of them would starve to death were it not for the immense number of illustrations needed to-day for books.” In answer to a question of J.’s about his methods of work, Watts said: “I never paint my ideal pictures direct from the model--I cannot think it right to paint either an angel or an ideal figure from life. Make as many studies from the model as you like, but paint the ideal from the ideal.” He took us into his modeling studio, whence a small tramway runs out into the garden. On the tram is a platform bearing an equestrian statue he has been working on for years. We had seen at the New Gallery a picture by Philip Burne-Jones of Watts in his white blouse at work on this colossal group. The horse is full of mettle, the rider equally spirited. “I call this ‘Physical Energy’ in contradistinction to intellectual or spiritual energy,” Watts said. “The youth has just accomplished the feat of subduing and reining in this fiery steed. He lifts his hand to shade his eyes and looks out into the distance for the next struggle, the next conquest to be made.” He is making the group out of hard plaster which he chips away with a chisel, as the wet clay gives him rheumatism! J. says it is the most difficult medium possible to work in. “If it is ever finished and cast,” Watts began, then paused,--