inting out their inevitable and too manifest imperfections. They are to
be carefully studied as the earliest efforts of the hand which painted
the Marriage at Cana, of the art which taught the rude fabrics made to be
trodden under foot to rival the glowing canvas of the great painters.
None of Motley's subsequent writings give such an insight into his
character and mental history. It took many years to train the as yet
undisciplined powers into orderly obedience, and to bring the unarranged
materials into the organic connection which was needed in the
construction of a work that should endure. There was a long interval
between his early manhood and the middle term of life, during which the
slow process of evolution was going on. There are plants which open their
flowers with the first rays of the sun; there are others that wait until
evening to spread their petals. It was already the high noon of life with
him before his genius had truly shown itself; if he had not lived beyond
this period, he would have left nothing to give him a lasting name.

V.

1841-1842. AEt. 27-28.

FIRST DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENT, SECRETARY OF LEGATION TO THE RUSSIAN
MISSION.--BRIEF RESIDENCE AT ST. PETERSBURG.--LETTER TO HIS MOTHER.
--RETURN.

In the autumn of 1841, Mr. Motley received the appointment of Secretary
of Legation to the Russian Mission, Mr. Todd being then the Minister.
Arriving at St. Petersburg just at the beginning of winter, he found the
climate acting very unfavorably upon his spirits if not upon his health,
and was unwilling that his wife and his two young children should be
exposed to its rigors. The expense of living, also, was out of proportion
to his income, and his letters show that he had hardly established
himself in St. Petersburg before he had made up his mind to leave a place
where he found he had nothing to do and little to enjoy. He was homesick,
too, as a young husband and father with an affectionate nature like his
ought to have been under these circumstances. He did not regret having
made the experiment, for he knew that he should not have been satisfied
with himself if he had not made it. It was his first trial of a career in
which he contemplated embarking, and in which afterwards he had an
eventful experience. In his private letters to his family, many of which
I have had the privilege of looking over, he mentions in detail all the
reasons which influenced him in forming his own opinion about the
expe