I wish you would send me out some sketch of Westbury with your pictures, if they come. I wish for one very much. I wish you could see the world here just now--a sky as pure and brilliant as it is possible to conceive, and every bough, branch, blade of grass and withered leaf coated with clear crystal and _blazing_ with prismatic colours. There are, every now and then, _sentiments_ in this sky that I have seen in none other. There are certain points of view in which Boston, rising beyond broad sheets of water that repeat them still more tenderly, seems to me worthy of a great painter. But do not come out and try unless you are quite sure of going back, or you will break your heart. REVERE HOUSE, BOSTON, _Friday, February 7_. I feel terrified, when you speak of my determining what is to be done with your pictures when they arrive in Boston, for assuredly I am utterly incompetent to any such decision, and can only refer myself to the judgment of my friend Mr. Cabot, who will certainly advise for the best in the matter, but who, nevertheless, is not infallible. I should think it rather late in the season for exhibiting them here, but again would not take upon myself to say. I do not know what the percentage on sale here is, but presume it is not higher than in London. But here people exhibit their pictures at a shilling a head, _i.e._ put them in a room hung round with black calico, light up a flare of gas above them, and take a quarter of a dollar from every sinner who sees them. Two of Churche's pictures (he is a great American artist, though you may never have heard of him) have been, or rather are, at this moment so exhibiting--his "Falls of Niagara," and a very beautiful landscape called the "Heart of the Andes." Both these pictures were exhibited in London, I know not with what success; they have both considerable merit, but the latter I admire extremely. Page had a "Venus" here the other day, exhibited by gas-light in a black room; but indeed, dear Mr. Leighton, it sometimes seems to me as if you never could imagine or would consent to the gross charlatanry which is practised--how necessarily I do not know--here about all such matters. Certainly your gold medal should be trumpeted--and your profession of art and your confession of faith, and anything most private and particular that you would not wish known, had better be published in several versions in all the newspapers of the United States. Your pictures must be placarded over all the walls in all the sizes of type conceivable, and all the colours of the rainbow. If you will write me your personal history, and rampant puffs of your own performances, I will copy them and send them to those sources of public instruction, the