Sumner wrote back to his friends in America: "I have made myself master of English practice and English circuit life. I cannot sufficiently express my admiration of the heartiness and cordiality which pervade all the English bar. They are truly a band of brothers, and I have been received among them as one of them. I have visited many--perhaps I may say most--of the distinguished men of these glorious countries (England, Scotland, and Ireland), at their seats, and have seen English country life, which is the height of refined luxury, in some of its most splendid phases. For all the opportunities I have had I feel grateful." Sumner found, what all travellers find, that cultivated, well bred people all speak a common language, that of universal courtesy and kindness. The English did not ask if he had wealth or distinguished parentage; it was enough that he was intelligent on all topics, considerate, gentle in manner, a gentleman in every possible situation. Every letter home teemed with descriptions of visits to Wordsworth, then sixty-nine years of age; to Macaulay, whom Sydney Smith called "a tremendous machine for colloquial oppression;" to the beautiful Caroline Norton, the poet, "one of the brightest intellects I have ever met," with "the grace and ease of the woman, with a strength and skill of which any man might well be proud;" to Lord Brougham, with "a fulness of information and physical spirits, which make him more commanding than all." Sumner spent three months in Rome, at first studying the language from six to twelve hours a day. He became the friend of the artist Thomas Crawford, then poor, but with high ambition. He wrote his praises home to his friends, induced them to buy one of his earliest works and exhibit it in Boston; cheered the half-despairing artist by assuring him that he would be "a great and successful sculptor, and be living in a palace," all of which came true. A noble nature, indeed, that could pause in its own aspiring work and lift another to fame and success! Six months were spent in Germany by Sumner, where he studied language and law as earnestly as he had in France and Italy. The rich, full days of literary intercourse were coming to an end. He wrote to his intimate friend Longfellow: "I shall soon be with you; and I now begin to think of hard work, of long days filled with uninteresting toil and humble gains. I sometimes have a moment of misgiving, when I think of the certainties which I abandoned for travel, and of the uncertainties to which I return. But this is momentary; for I am thoroughly content with what I have done. If clients fail me; if the favorable opinion of those on whom professional reputation depends leaves me; if I find myself poor and solitary,--still I shall be rich in the recollection of what I have seen, and will make companions of the great minds of these countries I have visited."