reatly pleased if you
should send her one of him. If you should get acquainted with him, inform
him that a very sensible, fine young lady in America requested it (but
don't tell him her name) from having read his works."

In a long letter of August 10 and 26, 1813, after again giving free rein
to his political feelings, he returns to the subject of his art:--

"Mr. West promised me a note to you, but he is an old man and very
forgetful, and I suppose he has forgotten it. I don't wish to remind him
of it directly, but, if in the course of conversation I can contrive to
mention it, I will....

"With respect to returning home next summer, Mr. Allston and Mr. West
think it would be an injury to me. Mr. Allston says I ought not to return
till I am a _painter_. I long to return as much as you can wish to have
me, but, if you can spare me a little longer, I should wish it. I abide
your decision, however, completely. Mr. Allston will write you fully on
this subject, and I will endeavor to persuade Mr. West also to do it.

"France I could not, at present, visit with advantage; that is to say
for, perhaps, a year. Mr. Allston thinks I ought to be previously well
grounded in the principles of the English school to resist the
corruptions of the French school; for they are corrupt in the principles
of painting, as in religion and everything else; but, when well grounded
in the good principles of this school, I could study and select the few
beauties of the French without being in danger of following their many
errors. The Louvre also would, in about a year, be of the greatest
advantage to me, and also the fine works in Italy....

"Mama has amused me very much in her letter where she writes on politics.
She says that, next to changing one's religion, she would dislike a man
for changing his politics. Mama, perhaps, is not aware that she would in
this way shut the door completely to conviction in anything. It would
imply that, because a man is educated in error, he must forever live in
error. I know exactly how mama feels; she thinks, as I did when at home,
that it was impossible for the Federalists to be in the wrong; but, as
all men are fallible, I think they may stand a chance of being wrong as
well as any other class of people....

"Mama thinks my '_error_' arises from wrong information. I will ask mama
which of us is likely to get at the truth; I, who am in England and can
see and hear all their motives for acting as they ha