enes that it has inherited, when, by all
its acts and arts, it is making them more lovely for its children.

And now, I trust, you will feel that it is not in mere yielding to my
own fancies that I have chosen, for the first three subjects in your
educational series, landscape scenes;--two in England, and one in
France,--the association of these being not without purpose:--and for
the fourth Albert Duerer's dream of the Spirit of Labour. And of the
landscape subjects, I must tell you this much. The first is an engraving
only; the original drawing by Turner was destroyed by fire twenty years
ago. For which loss I wish you to be sorry, and to remember, in
connection with this first example, that whatever remains to us of
possession in the arts is, compared to what we might have had if we had
cared for them, just what that engraving is to the lost drawing. You
will find also that its subject has meaning in it which will not be
harmful to you. The second example is a real drawing by Turner, in the
same series, and very nearly of the same place; the two scenes are
within a quarter of a mile of each other. It will show you the character
of the work that was destroyed. It will show you, in process of time,
much more; but chiefly, and this is my main reason for choosing both, it
will be a permanent expression to you of what English landscape was
once;--and must, if we are to remain a nation, be again.

I think it farther right to tell you, for otherwise you might hardly pay
regard enough to work apparently so simple, that by a chance which is
not altogether displeasing to me, this drawing, which it has become, for
these reasons, necessary for me to give you, is--not indeed the best I
have, (I have several as good, though none better)--but, of all I have,
the one I had least mind to part with.

The third example is also a Turner drawing--a scene on the Loire--never
engraved. It is an introduction to the series of the Loire, which you
have already; it has in its present place a due concurrence with the
expressional purpose of its companions; and though small, it is very
precious, being a faultless, and, I believe, unsurpassable example of
water-colour painting.

Chiefly, however, remember the object of these three first examples is
to give you an index to your truest feelings about European, and
especially about your native landscape, as it is pensive and historical;
and so far as you yourselves make any effort at its represen