Edward Laning a colleague from the Art Students League had lettered a quote from Henry James's Short Stories of an Artist. "The Middle Years".  Isabel had kept this lettered quote on a wall in her studio to remind her to continue. She had lived by this quote. It would get her going day after day. "We work in the dark. We do what we can-we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."