This motive we find recurring again and again in his correspondence and in his ultimate notes.  Not, “What can I do for myself?” but “What can I do for mankind?” Never falsely humble, but, on the contrary, properly proud of his achievements, jealous of his own good name and fame and eager honestly to acquire wealth, he yet ever put the public good above his private gain.

He was now again in Europe, the goal of his desires for many years, and he was about to visit the Continent, where he had never been.  Paris, with her treasures of art, Italy, the promised land of every artist, lay before him.

We shall miss the many intimate letters to his wife and to his parents, but we shall find others to his brothers and to his friends, perhaps a shade less unreserved, but still giving a clear account of his wanderings, and, from a mass of little notebooks and sketch-books, we can follow him on his pilgrimage and glean some keen observations on the peoples and places visited by him.  It must be remembered that this was still the era of the stage-coach and the diligence, and that it took many days to accomplish a journey which is now made in almost the same number of hours.

On Christmas Day, 1829, he begins a letter from Dover to a favorite cousin, Mrs. Margaret Roby, of Utica, New York:—­

“When I left Liverpool I took my seat upon the outside of the coach, in order to see as much as possible of the country through which I was to pass.  Unfortunately the fog and smoke were so dense that I could see objects but a few yards from the road.  Occasionally, indeed, the fog would become less dense, and we could see the fine lawns of the seats of the nobility and gentry, which were scattered on our route, and which still retained their verdure.  Now and then the spire and towers of some ancient village church rose out of the leafless trees, beautifully simple in their forms, and sometimes clothed to the very tops with the evergreen ivy.  It was severely cold; my eyebrows, hair, cap, and the fur of my cloak were soon coated with frost, but I determined to keep my seat though I suffered some from the cold.

“Their fine natural health, or the frosty weather, gave to the complexions of the peasantry, particularly the females and children, a beautiful rosy bloom.  Through all the villages there was the appearance of great comfort and neatness,—­a neatness, however, very different from ours.  Their nicely thatched cottages bore all the marks of great antiquity, covered with brilliant green moss like velvet, and round the doors and windows were trained some of the many kinds of evergreen vines which abound here.  Most of them also had a trim courtyard before their doors, planted with laurel and holly and box, and sometimes a yew cut into some fantastic shape.  The whole appearance of the villages was neat and venerable; like some aged matron who, with all her wrinkles, her stooping form, and grey locks, preserves the dignity of cleanliness in her ancient but becoming costume.