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56 from this unprompted impulse of taste was doubtless heightened by the ingenuity of the expedients that sustained it, I can never give paper or speech any semblance of the joy with which I received from my father's hand, soon after entering this new school, a box of the finest water colors, with camel's-hair pencils of different sizes, drawing paper, and a piece of India-rubber, which I have kept to this day, a simple trophy and record of the past. Thus reënforced and upbuilt, I proceeded to copy large and complicated patterns, taking pride in the degree of labor they required. "Maria," or the crazy girl described by the sentimental Yorick, was one of the first large pictures of my production. She was represented sitting under an immense tree, with exuberant brown tresses, a pink jacket and white satin petticoat, gazing pensively at a small lapdog fastened to her hand by a smart blue ribbon. Sterne is seen at a distance, taking note of her with an eye-glass, riding in a yellow-bodied coach, upon a fresh-looking turnpike road, painted in stripes with ochre and bistre. But notwithstanding this, and other pictorial exhibitions of shepherds and shepherdesses, encompassed by huge wreaths and emblems, were sufficiently lauded and marvelled at, my proficiency, after I was furnished with every requisite material, did not equal my perseverance in the days of my destitution. The few rules which were given us, and which were almost entirely about the use of colors, no correct