The best recommendation I can have is my own talents, and the fruits of my own labors, and what others will not do for me, I will try and do for myself.

I purchased excellent and beautiful horses, visited all such neighbors as I found in congenial spirits, and was as happy as happy could be.

My drawings at first were made altogether in watercolors, but they wanted softness and a great deal of finish.

Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.

During all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.

There is the morass, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, whereby one treads down the forests of Labrador; and the unexpected bunting or sylvia which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the ground creeping plant.

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.