the picture and they said, "The price is too high." Next day
Turner's price for the "Carthage" was one thousand pounds. Finally, Sir
Robert Peel offered the painter five thousand pounds for the picture, but
Turner said he had decided to keep it for himself, and he did.

In the forepart of his career he sold few pictures--for the simple reason
that no one wanted them. And he sold few pictures during the latter years
of his life, for the reason that his prices were so high that none but
the very rich could buy. First, the public scorned Turner. Next, Turner
scorned the public. In the beginning it would not buy his pictures, and
later it could not.

A frivolous public and a shallow press, from his first exhibition, when
fifteen years of age, to his last, when seventy, made sport of his
originalities. But for merit there is a recompense in sneers, and a
benefit in sarcasms, and a compensation in hate; for when these things
get too pronounced a champion appears. And so it was with Turner. Next to
having a Boswell write one's life, what is better than a Ruskin to uphold
one's cause!

Success came slowly; his wants were few, but his ambition never
slackened, and finally the dreams of his youth became the realities of
his manhood.

At twenty, Turner loved a beautiful girl--they became engaged. He went
away on a tramp sketching-tour and wrote his ladylove just one short
letter each month. He believed that "absence only makes the heart grow
fonder," not knowing that this statement is only the vagary of a poet.
When he returned the lady was betrothed to another. He gave the pair his
blessing, and remained a bachelor--a very confirmed bachelor.

Perhaps, however, the reason his fiancee proved untrue was not through
lack of the epistles he wrote her, but on account of them. In the British
Museum I examined several letters written by Turner. They appeared very
much like copy for a Josh Billings Almanac. Such originality in spelling,
punctuation and use of capitals! It was admirable in its uniqueness.
Turner did not think in words--he could only think in paint. But the
young lady did not know this, and when a letter came from her homely
little lover she was shocked, then she laughed, then she showed these
letters to a nice young man who was clerk to a fishmonger and he laughed,
then they both laughed. Then this nice young man and this beautiful young
lady became engaged, and they were married at Saint Andrew's on a lovely
May mor