; I see that Mr. Allston is not a flatterer but a friend, and that
really to improve I must see my faults. What he says after this always
puts me in good humor again. He tells me to put a few flesh tints here, a
few gray ones there, and to clear up such and such a part by such and
such colors. And not only that, but takes the palette and brushes and
shows me how, and in this way he assists me. I think it one of the
greatest blessings that I am under his eye. I don't know how many errors
I might have fallen into if it had not been for his attentions....

"I am painting portraits alone at present. Our sitters are among our
acquaintances. We paint them if they defray the expense of canvas and
colors...."

"Mama wished me to send some specimens of my painting home that you might
see my improvement. The pictures that I now paint would be uninteresting
to you; they consist merely of studies and drawings from plaster figures,
hands and feet and such things. The portraits are taken by those for whom
they are painted. I shall soon begin a portrait of myself and will try
and send that to you."

"_June 8, 1812._ Mama asks in one of her letters if we make our own tea.
We do. The tea-kettle is brought to us boiling in the morning and evening
and we make our own coffee (which, by the way, is very cheap here) and
tea. We live quite in the old bachelor style. I don't know but it will be
best for me to live in this style through life; my profession seems to
require all my time.

"Mr. Hurd will take a diploma to you, with others to different persons
near Boston. I suppose it confers some title on you of consequence, as I
saw at his house a great number to be sent to all parts of the world to
distinguished men. I find papa is known here pretty extensively. Some
one, hearing my name and that I am an American, immediately asks if I am
related to you....

"The Administration is at length formed, and, to the great sorrow of
everybody, the old Ministers are reelected. The Orders in Council are the
subject of debate at the House of Commons this evening. It is an
important crisis, though there is scarcely any hope of their repeal. If
not, I sincerely hope that America will declare war.

"What Lord Castlereagh said at a public meeting a few days ago ought to
be known in America. Respecting the Orders in Council, when some one said
unless they were repealed war with America must be the consequence, he
replied that, '_if the people would but