Thomas G. Appleton was no dilettante; his interest in the subject was serious and abiding. He did not wear his art as he did his gloves, nor did he turn it into an intellectual abstraction. There was nothing he disliked more than the kind of pretension which tries to make a knowledge of art a vehicle for self-importance. "Who," he said, "ought not to feel humble before a painting of Titian's or Correggio's? It is only when we feel so that we can appreciate a great work of art." He believed that an important moral lesson could be inculcated by a picture as well as by a poem,--even by a realistic Dutch painting. "Women worship the Venus of Milo now," he said, "just as they did in ancient Greece, and it is good for them, too." He respected William Morris Hunt as the best American painter of his time, but thought he would be a better painter if he were not so proud. Pride leads to arrogance, and arrogance is blinding. After he came into possession of his inheritance he showed that he could make a good use of money. One of his first acts was to purchase a set of engravings in the Vatican, valued at ten thousand dollars, for the Boston Public Library. "I was not such a fool as to pay that sum for it, though," he remarked to Rev. Samuel Longfellow. He visited the studios of struggling artists in Rome and Boston, gave them advice and encouragement,--made purchases himself, sometimes, and advised his friends to purchase when he found a painting that was really excellent. He also purchased some valuable old paintings to adorn his house on Commonwealth Avenue. He placed two of these at one time on free exhibition at Doll's picture- store, and going into the rooms where they hung, I found Tom Appleton explaining their merits to a group of remarkably pretty school-girls. At the same moment, another gentleman who knew Mr. Appleton entered, and said, "Ah! a Palma Vecio, Mr. Appleton; how delightful! It is a Palma, is it not?" "That," replied Mr. Appleton, "is probably a Palma; but what do you say to this, which I consider a much better picture?" The gentleman did not know; but it looked like Venetian coloring. "Quite right," said Mr. Appleton; "I bought it at the sale of a private collection in Rome, and it was catalogued as a Tintoretto, but I said, 'No, Bassano;' and it is the best Bassano I ever saw. The Italians call it '_Il Coconotte_.'" Mr. Appleton had no intention of palming off doubtful paintings on his friends or the public; but in regard to "_Il Coconotte_" he was confident of its true value, and rightly so. The painting, so called from a head in the group covered very thinly with hair, was the pride of his collection and one of the best of Bassano's works. The other painting looked to me like a Palma, and I have always supposed that it was one. After this Mr. Appleton branched off on to an interesting anecdote concerning an Italian cicerone, and finally left his audience as well entertained as if they had been to the theatre.