At the age of twenty-two young Ellison, who had for some two or three years been devoting himself earnestly to the art of drawing and painting, found himself hemmed in with difficulties and discouragements that seemed almost insurmountable. The goal he aspired to win was so far distant that his eyes could scarcely reach it, and between lay barriers that he sadly feared he would never be able to pass. Without an income, and without friends to sustain him for a few years until he could command the patronage of those who loved the arts, how was he to sustain himself? To go abroad and study the works of the old masters in Italy was the dearest wish of his life; but there was no hope of this—at least not in the present, for the little profitable work he was able to procure scarcely gave him food and decent raiment, and was not, when completed, in a style of art at all flattering to his vanity. “Oh! if I only had the means of studying abroad for two or three years, and not thus be compelled to disgrace myself and the profession by painting mere daubs of portraits in order to get my daily bread,” would fall from his lips over and over again, as he threw aside his brush and pallet and yielded himself up to desponding thoughts. His hopes were too ardent and his imagination too bright for the cold realities of the present. Patience and perseverance amid difficulties were not the leading elements of his character. A lover of art, and possessing a high appreciation of the beautiful, all that he had yet been able to accomplish appeared in his eyes so poor and defective, that he rather shrunk from than courted public attention. “If I could but hide myself away for two or three years, and devote all that time to the study and practice of art, how happy I would be! Then I could come before the public and present something worthy of the native ability I possess, and worthy to stand beside the productions of those who have won an honored name in the profession.” Thus would he indulge in dreams of what for the present was unattainable, and idly repose for a season under a sense of bitter discouragement.