Page:Letters of Life.djvu/148

136 abridging, for private use, a treatise on Rhetoric, which had been among my favorite school studies. To multiply examples and illustrations of its different figures, gave additional interest to a perusal of the standard poets. A large and elaborate Commonplace Book was also commenced, where selections both in prose and poetry are characterized by solid and serious thought. Its clear and compact chirography is embellished by a few paintings in water colors, more remarkable for adaptation of subject than accuracy of perspective or artistic execution. One in particular, which represents the flight of Eneas from the flames of Troy, and accompanies a copious extract from Dryden's Virgil, is amenable to criticism. The group seem proceeding leisurely down the steps of a temple, whose columns and entablatures, notwithstanding the proximity of the fire, are in an untouched freshness of bright brown. Anchises sits calmly upon the bowed back of his heroic son, as if enjoying the ride, carrying in a section of his purple robe what might seem to be a paper of yellow-headed dolls, intended for his household gods. Eneas, though sorely burdened, finds a hand wherewith to grasp Ascanius, a bewildered-looking little personage in a red frock. The flames shoot up like slender, pointed, red needles, from arches whose integrity is unbroken, and the volumed smoke, in regular half-circles and rhomboids, has a decided tint of azure. Creusa follows closely, with an unmoved aspect, clothed