John's temperament seems to have always been excitable. Another instance of his exuberant joy at an early success was when he returned with twenty or thirty guineas in his pocket (which he presented to his mother) from painting some of the Prideaux portraits, still preserved at Place House, near Padstow; he threw the glittering coins on the floor, and himself upon them, twisting about in his fine new coat, lace ruffles, and silk stockings, and exclaiming with humorous glee, 'See! see! I'm walving [wallowing] in gold!' But he was as easily depressed. He used to tell how he once went to the neighbouring town of Redruth, with half-a-crown in his pocket, to buy himself some colours, but was so attracted by the gilded gingerbreads and other delights of the fair that in a very short time his money was all wasted, and he had to trudge his weary way homewards without the painting materials, and so overcome by the miserable plight to which his thoughtlessness had reduced him that he said he seriously meditated suicide by the way. There was nothing enervating in the way in which young Opie was reared. Not only was his fare frugal and his clothing and lodging of very simple sort, but his religion and morals were doubtless very strictly looked after by his parents, who seem to have been of the old Puritanical school. But the spirit of the artist broke out one summer Sunday afternoon, when Opie--then eleven years old--was left in the cottage with his father, whilst old Mrs. Opie went to church, or meeting-house. The old man had fallen fast asleep, and his hopeful offspring seized the golden opportunity of painting his portrait, hitherto a forbidden operation;--the way in which the 'Sabbath-breaking' young rogue was reviled by his progenitors may be imagined better than I can describe it. Yet the likeness was so good, and the motive so affectionate, that the offence was condoned, and the portrait exhibited to all the neighbours with parental pride, notwithstanding the boy's having irritated his father during the progress of the work by awakening him from his nap in order to 'get his eyes lightened up.' One of his uncles, however, is said to have fostered John's talents, both as a mathematician and as an artist; at any rate his love of art was not to be quenched, and the cottage-walls were ere long decorated with portraits of most of his relations and playfellows, painted with singular force and brilliancy for so young and untaught an artist. Wolcot says that Opie used often to get up at three in the morning to go to work on his painting.