If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.

The fact is I am growing old too fast, alas! I feel it, and yet work I will, and may God grant me life to see the last plate of my mammoth work finished.

On landing at New York I caught the yellow fever by walking to the bank at Greenwich to get the money to which my father's letter of credit entitled me. The kind man who commanded the ship that brought me from France, whose name was a common one, John Smith, took particular charge of me, removed me to Morristown, N. J., and placed me under the care of two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding - house. To their skilful and untiring ministrations I may safely say I owe the prolongation of my life.

In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests.

To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.

To repay evils with kindness is the religion I was taught to practise, and this will forever be my rule.

Almost every day, instead of going to school when I ought to have gone, I usually made for the fields, where I spent the day.