“Present to the eye of your fancy the closing-in of a fine, blue-skied, sunny American Saturday evening, whose tranquillity and repose rendered it the fit precursor of the Sabbath.  Imagine the tea-table placed in your sitting-parlor, all the windows open, and round it, first, the housekeeper pouring out tea; next her, Miss C. Borland; next her, your mother, whose looks spoke love as often as you were mentioned, and that was not infrequently, I assure you.  On your mother’s right sat my sister, next whom was your father in his long green-striped study gown, his apostolic smile responding to the eye of your mother when his dear son was his theme.  I was placed (and an honorable post I considered it) at his right hand.

“There the scene for you.  Can you paint it?  Neither of your brothers was at home....

“In home news we have little variety.  The sister of your quondam flame, Miss Ann Hart, bestowed her hand last winter on Victory as personified in our little fat captain, Isaac Hull, who is now reposing in the shade of his laurels, and amusing himself in directing the construction of a seventy-four at Portsmouth.  Where the fair excellence, Miss Jannette herself, is at present, I am unable to say.  The sunshine of her eyes has not beamed upon me since I beheld you delightedly and gallantly figuring at her side at Daddy Value’s ball, where I exhibited sundry feats of the same sort myself.

“By the way, Mons. V. is still in fiddling condition, and the immaculate Ann Jane Caroline Gibbs, Madame, has bestowed a subject on the state!!

“A fortnight since your friend Nancy Goodrich was married to William Ellsworth.  Emily Webster is soon to plight her faith to his brother Henry.  Miss Mary Ann Woolsey thinks of consummating the blessedness of a Mr. Scarborough before the expiration of the summer.  He is a widower of thirty or thirty-five with one child, a little girl four or five years old.

“Thus, you see, my dear friend, all here seem to be setting their faces heavenward; all seem ambitious of repairing the ravages of war....

“P.S.  Oh! horrid mistake I made on the preceding page!  Nancy and Emily, on my knees I deprecate your wrath!!  I have substituted William for Henry and Henry for William.  No, Henry is Nancy’s and William Emily’s.  They are twins, and I, forsooth, must make them changelings!”

In a letter of July 30, 1813, his mother thus exhorts him:—­

“I hope, my dear son, your success in your profession will not have a tendency to make you vain, or embolden you to look down on any in your profession whom Providence may have been less favorable to in point of talents for this particular business; and that you will observe a modesty in the reception of premiums and praises on account of your talents, that shall show to those who bestow them that you are worthy of them in more senses than merely as an artist.  It will likewise convince those who are less favored that you are far from exulting in their disappointments,—­as I hope is truly the case,—­and prevent that jealousy and envy that too often discovers itself in those of the same profession....