Yet I believe he never missed any great race; passed the greater part of his life on horseback; and hunted during the whole Leicestershire season;—but never made a bet, never had a serious fall, and never hurt a horse. Between him and my father there was absolute confidence, and the utmost friendship that could exist without community of pursuit. My father was greatly proud of Mr. Telford’s standing among the country gentlemen; and Mr. Telford was affectionately respectful to my father’s steady industry and infallible commercial instinct. Mr. Telford’s actual part in the conduct of the business was limited to attendance in the counting-house during two months at Midsummer, when my father took his holiday, and sometimes for a month at the beginning of the year, when he travelled for orders. At these times Mr. Telford rode into London daily from Widmore, signed what letters and bills needed signature, read the papers, and rode home again: any matters needing deliberation were referred to my father, or awaited his return. All the family at Widmore would have been limitlessly kind to my mother and me, if they had been permitted any opportunity; but my mother always felt, in cultivated society,—and was too proud to feel with patience,—the defects of her own early education, and therefore (which was the true and fatal sign of such defect) never familiarly visited any one whom she did not feel to be, in some sort, her inferior. Nevertheless, Mr. Telford had a singularly important influence in my education. By, I believe, his sister’s advice, he gave me, as soon as it was published, the illustrated edition of Rogers’ ‘Italy.’ This book was the first means I had of looking carefully at Turner’s work: and I might, not without some appearance of reason, attribute to the gift the entire direction of my life’s energies. But it is the great error of thoughtless biographers to attribute to the accident which introduces some new phase of character, all the circumstances of character which gave the accident importance. The essential point to be noted, and accounted for, was that I could understand Turner’s work when I saw it; not by what chance or in what year it was first seen. Poor Mr. Telford, nevertheless, was always held by papa and mamma primarily responsible for my Turner insanities. In a more direct, though less intended way, his help to me was important. For, before my father thought it right to hire a carriage for the above mentioned Midsummer holiday, Mr. Telford always lent us his own travelling chariot.