So it seemed only natural that Uncle should turn to Art to make our living.  But he hesitated because there is some doubt whether a person of noble birth can sell anything for money.  But Uncle says Tintoretto the great Italian artist had two quarterings of nobility, and Velasquez had two and a half.

Luckily we have with us among our things Uncle’s easel and his paints that he used in Berlin.  He had always to have special things because he doesn’t use little brushes and tubes of colour as ordinary artists do, but had a big brush and his paint in a tin can, so that he can work more quickly.  Fortunately we have with us three of Uncle’s pictures rolled up in the bottom of our boxes.  He is going to sell these first and after that he says that he will paint one or two every day.  One of the three canvasses that we have is an allegorical picture called “Progress” in which Progress is seen coming out of a cloud in the background with Uncle William standing in the foreground.  Another is called “Modern Science” and in this Science is seen crouched in the dark in the background and Uncle William standing in the light in the foreground.  The other is called “Midnight in the Black Forest.”  Uncle William did it in five minutes with a pot of black paint.  They say it is impressionistic.

So all the evening Uncle William and Uncle Henry talked about the new plan.  It is wonderful how Uncle William enters into a thing.  He got me to fetch him his old blue blouse, which was with the painting things, and he put it on over his clothes and walked up and down the room with a long paint-brush in his hand.  “We painters, my dear Henry,” he said, “must not be proud.  America needs Art.  Very good.  She shall have it.”

I could see, of course, that Uncle William did not like the idea of selling pictures for money.  But he is going to make that side of it less objectionable by painting a picture, a very large picture, for nothing and giving it to the big Metropolitan Art Gallery which is here.  Uncle has already partly thought it out.  It is to be called the “Spirit of America” and in it the Spirit of America will be seen doubled up in the background:  Uncle has not yet fully thought out the foreground, but he says he has an idea.

In any case he is going to refuse to take anything more than a modest price for his pictures.  Beyond that, he says, not one pfennig.

So this morning Uncle rolled up his three canvasses under his arm and has gone away to sell them.

I am very glad, as we have but little money, indeed hardly any except Uncle Henry’s wages.  And I have been so worried, too, and surprised since we came here about Cousin Willie.  He hardly is with the rest of us at all.  He is out all night and sleeps in the day time, and often I am sure that he has been drinking.  One morning when he came back to the house at about breakfast time he showed me quite a handful of money, but wouldn’t say where he got it.  He said there was lots more