The same union of balancing elements of character was seen in regard of external influence upon him. His mind was certainly original, and his resolution and will most determined. Yet to external influences, direct and indirect, even to the tone of feeling and character of those who were with him, he was as certainly sensitive. Suggestion or criticism, warning or encouragement, he readily, almost unconsciously, took in, and seemed to assimilate, till they formed a part of his own mind. In respect of his own art, however, this susceptibility to external influence produced no inconsistency, for its results were fused under the power of his original conception, and therefore, while they prevented anything fantastic and whimsical, they did not weaken the vigour which belongs to self-reliance. In fact it was one of the causes of that progressiveness of mind, which was always remarked in him, and to which allusion has already been made. He had a firm grasp of certain great principles; therefore he had the power to appreciate and to assimilate knowledge, from whatever sources it came. He was fettered by no system of rules; therefore he had the elasticity of mind, without which it is impossible to profit by external influence and teaching. To the last he confessed himself a learner. Sometimes, indeed, he would take up some new idea suggested from without, with characteristic eagerness, and begin to develope from it inferences, which were to yield a new store of first principles. But when these first principles were carefully scanned, they were found to be “old friends under a new face;” and so the new modification was accepted, while the essential ideas remained substantially the same. His works, accordingly, though they showed progressiveness, were always characteristic, and had a certain unity, which no competent eye can fail to discern. Much indeed of his success and his power of influence depended on this union of apparently opposite elements, on this absence of one-sidedness and distortion of character. It was not produced in him by the deepening and enlarging influence of abstract study. Even in his own art his knowledge was gained mainly by experience, and he studied best with the pencil in his hand. But in other fields of thought, he had in him very little of the student. His interest indeed was wide and keen enough, but it showed itself in quickness of observation and intuition, rather than in any profound study. Even from politics he to a great extent stood aloof, though he was consistently attached to the Liberal party, and his mind was certainly more innovating than conservative. Science (as has been said) interested him far more than literature. Had he not been distinguished as an artist, he might well have made himself a name in mechanical science, in which his great fertility of contrivance, his love of enterprise, and his tendency to set aside stereotyped systems and conventional rules, would have found a congenial field of exercise.