Such scenes presented little to tempt the copyist, yet, notwithstanding her difficulties and discouragements in painting, Miss Legaré continued to struggle on toward the idea of perfection in her untutored imagination. Her brother Hugh was wont to remark that “her passion lay there,” in the painter’s art. She found not much sympathy in this chosen pursuit, till some time in the year 1827, when she became acquainted with a gentleman who possessed a similar taste, cultivated in a high degree by superior knowledge of art. This was Colonel John S. Cogdell, who at that time had considerable celebrity as an amateur painter. Miss Legaré submitted her efforts to his careful criticism, and received from him the instruction she needed. She has attributed her subsequent success to his aid. He procured for her study the finest new pictures that could be obtained. Among the artists whose works were now introduced to her, Doughty became, to her fancy, the beau ideal of excellence. Even when a child she had been accustomed to turn away in disgust, with a “’Tis not pretty, mamma,” from flaring or exaggerated colors in a picture. Doughty’s subdued coloring, and soft, dreamy style, kindled her imagination, and aroused her ardent emulation. “Could I but paint one picture like Doughty’s!” she would often exclaim; and it may be said her earliest initiation into the school of Nature, and into an apprehension of her seductive beauties, was by seeing the works of this eminent American landscape-painter, whom his country allowed to languish in bitter penury, for want of the appreciation his genius should have commanded. Miss Legaré’s first attempt to copy one of his paintings succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations of herself and her friends. Colonel Cogdell encouraged her still more by saying, “You have an eye for color, which must insure you success in copying nature.”