"I never thought of that," he said. "Yes, by Jove, it's true. They are hypnotized, every man Jack of them, rich and poor alike. Nothing can shake it off except the individual will. Every artist has to go through that. And your light, my friend, is nothing but the vision of the artist. Only hypnotism, the absolute surrender of the will, could account for the horrible distortions that appear in what they call art, what they call morality, the organization of what they call society. I know what Fourmy means. The infernal thing is always cropping up in my work. When an artist has seen what he wants to paint, there is always the danger of his being hypnotized by it, and if he doesn't shake free of that, he is almost bound to paint it badly, however skillful he may be. He may paint a picture that people will like, but he won't create a work of art." "Isn't it possible for a man to be hypnotized by art?" asked René. "If he is, he won't be an artist. I've seen students surrender their will one after the other to Raphael, Rembrandt, Manet, Cezanne, not to their love of truth and beauty, but to the masterful skill which their love gave them. If they had surrendered to their love their own wills would have been strengthened, not destroyed. That is always happening: a manner is imitated, mimicked over and over again until at last it is so vilely done, so remote from the original as to have no charm to lead even the stupidest little draughtsman to make a copy. Is it so in life? I don't know. Much the same, perhaps. Weren't there imitations of Byron for generations after him? Something vile the brutes could imitate. No one imitated Shelley." "Who was he?" asked Kurt. Kilner stared at him aghast. "A poet. _The_ poet." "I suppose I ought to have known," replied Kurt, chuckling at Kilner's annoyance, "but you see I was brought up in a German household. There was a fellow called Schiller they used to talk about, and they named a club after him where they used to eat and drink." "And what," asked Kilner, "made you take to flying?" "Oh, I don't know. I always loved engines and speed. And after all, you know, it is the only thing to do." "Kilner thinks painting is the only thing to do," interjected René. "I meant for me," answered Kurt. "That may be all right for him. I hate using my brains. Things get muddled at once if I do. I love using my body so that every muscle is called into play, and I loathe illness. It's torture to me to be just a little unwell. I get moments out of my work that make everything else seem nothing at all, just something to laugh at and be merry over." "Something like that is my life," said Kilner. "A few moments, only they are not enough in themselves. I have to follow them up in spirit and express them." "And I," said René, "am always hunting about for those moments in life and not finding them." "Ever known one?"