That is to say⁠—I suppose I am expressing myself very ridiculously, but⁠—you can see how the things of the mind and the love of beauty come together, and that they always really have been one and the same⁠—in other words, science and art; and that the calling of being an artist surely belongs with the others, as a sort of fifth faculty, because it too is a humanistic calling, a variety of humanistic interest, in so far as its most important theme or concern is with man⁠—you will agree with me on that point. When I experimented in that line in my youth, I never painted anything but ships and water, of course. But notwithstanding, in my eyes the most interesting branch of painting is and remains portraiture, because it has man for its immediate object⁠—that was why I asked at once if you had done anything in that field.⁠—Wouldn’t this be a far more favourable place for it to hang?”