ghten the public mind as to
make the way easier for those that come after me, I don't know that I
shall not have served the cause of the fine arts as effectively as by
painting pictures which might be appreciated one hundred years after I am
gone. If I am to be the Pioneer and am fitted for it, why should I not
glory as much in felling trees and clearing away the rubbish as in
showing the decorations suited to a more advanced state of
cultivation?...

"You will certainly have the blues when you first arrive, but the longer
you stay abroad the more severe will be the disease. Excuse my
predictions.... The Georgia affair is settled after a fashion; not so the
nullifiers; they are infatuated. Disagreeable as it will be, they will be
put down with disgrace to them."

In another letter to Mr. Cooper, dated February 28, 1833, he writes in
the same vein:--

"The South Carolina business is probably settled by this time by Mr.
Clay's compromise bill, so that the legitimates of Europe may stop
blowing their twopenny trumpets in triumph at our _disunion_. The same
clashing of interests in Europe would have caused twenty years of war and
torrents of bloodshed; with us it has caused three or four years of wordy
war and some hundreds of gallons of ink; but no necks are broken, nor
heads; all will be in _statu ante bello_ in a few days....

"My dear sir, you are wanted at home. I want you to encourage me by your
presence. I find the pioneer business has less of romance in the reality
than in the description, and I find some tough stumps to pry up and heavy
stones to roll out of the way, and I get exhausted and desponding, and I
should like a little of your sinew to come to my aid at such times, as it
was wont to come at the Louvre....

"There is nothing new in New York; everybody is driving after money, as
usual, and there is an alarm of fire every half-hour, as usual, and the
pigs have the freedom of the city, as usual; so that, in these respects
at least, you will find New York as you left it, except that they are not
the same people that are driving after money, nor the same houses burnt,
nor the same pigs at large in the street.... You will all be welcomed
home, but come prepared to find many, very many things in taste and
manners different from your own good taste and manners. Good taste and
good manners would not be conspicuous if all around possessed the same
manners."

CHAPTER XXII

1833--1836

Still painting.