Page:Twice-Told Tales.djvu/239

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THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.[1]


'But this painter!' cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. 'He not only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Doctor Mather, and gives lectures in anatomy to Doctor Boylston. In a word, he will meet the best instructed man among us, on his own ground. Moreover, he is a polished gentleman—a citizen of the world—yes, a true cosmopolite; for he will speak like a native of each clime and country on the globe, except our own forests, whither he is now going. Nor is all this what I most admire in him.'

'Indeed!' said Elinor, who had listened with a woman's interest to the description of such a man. 'Yet this is admirable enough.'

  1. This story was suggested by an anecdote of Stuart, related in Dunlap's History of the Arts of Design—a most entertaining book to the general reader, and a deeply interesting one, we should think, to the artist.