At an earlier age (about fifteen or sixteen) his artistic taste had found a much more curious development. There was much of the boy in him still (as indeed there was in all his after-life), and he did not disdain boyish fancies and amusements. Accordingly he resolved to transform his small attic bedroom into a “hermitage,"--“a rocky interior,” “with openings looking out on a sunny landscape.” The mechanical work and the painting he did entirely himself, working at it in all his spare time with constant delight; and when it was done, he kept up its character by using it as a painting-room, and drawing constantly figures of all kinds on a large scale on its walls. His family noticed all this with some wonder and amusement; he himself, though he used to laugh at it in after-life, remembered it with a kind of pleasure. These details may seem trivial, but they were certainly characteristic. The work must have given boldness to his hand (as scene-painting has done to some of our great painters); it may not improbably have helped to kindle and foster his imagination, and at the same time to satisfy that delight in alteration and contrivance which always was conspicuous in him. In every respect his home was a simple and a happy one. If it did not stimulate artistic tastes, it certainly allowed them perfect freedom, and gave them the support of admiration and sympathy. His character, in spite of his fondness for change and amusement, was always strongly domestic. In his work, and the society of his mother (for so he always esteemed her) and his brothers, he found all the interest he cared for. Such are the records of his early days. They are scanty enough; but they are corroborated by the recollections of his later life, for his was a character that changed but little. It is evident from these that he was in every sense of the word a self-educated man, and the recognition of this fact is most important, for the true appreciation of his character, and a right understanding of his career.