ted here yesterday by a visitor. I will join my
thread, and go on with a few words which I have this moment read in
Hayward's Appendix to Goethe's "Faust." When Goethe had to bear the
death of his only son, he wrote to Zelter thus: "Here then can _the
mighty conception of duty_ alone hold us erect--I have no other care
than to keep myself in equipoise. The body _must_, the spirit _will_,
and he who sees a necessary path prescribed to his will has no need to
ponder much." The first part of this is noble; but I am not going to do
what I used to quarrel so much with you for doing--fill my letters with
quotations, or even make disquisitions of them; at any rate, till I have
answered your last.

I am extremely vexed at all the trouble you and Emily have taken about
my picture: for the artist himself (Mr. Sully, of Philadelphia) is not
satisfied with it, and I am sure would be rather sorry than glad that it
were exhibited. That artist is a charming person; and I must tell you
how he proceeded about that picture. When your letter came,
acknowledging the receipt of it, he asked how you were satisfied: I told
him the truth, and what you had written on the subject of the likeness.
He did not appear stupidly annoyed, but sorry for your disappointment,
and told me that he had been from the first dissatisfied with it as a
likeness, himself. He pressed upon my acceptance for you a little
melancholy head of me, an admirable and not too much flattered likeness;
but as he had given that to his wife, of whom I am very fond, of course
I would not deprive her of it; and there the matter rested. But when,
some time after, some pictures he had painted for us were paid for, he
steadfastly refused the price agreed upon for yours, because it had not
satisfied him _himself_. He said that had you been even less pleased
with it, he should not _therefore_ have refused the money; but his own
conscience, he added, bore witness to the truth of your objections, and
when that was the case, he invariably acted in the same way, and
declined to receive payment for what he didn't consider worth it. As he
is our friend, we could not press the money upon him; but we have got
him to undertake a portrait of Dr. Mease, and I have added sundry grains
more to my regard for him. As to the likeness, had you seen me about
three months after my marriage, you would have thought better of it.
[The portrait in question, painted for my friend, and now, I believe,
still at