In truth, the young artist did not long remain satisfied with spending all her energies merely in copying the works of others. Though she had never visited any other region than the low forest country of her native state, she endeavored to create scenes by combining various objects into a single composition. Landscapes and rustic scenes in every variety were her delight; yet, having never seen a mountain, nor the country in any aspects different from the monotonous views in her neighborhood, how was she to produce an original picture? How do justice in any way to the powers of which she felt conscious? It was not so easy for a lady to travel. In the South particularly, she would be hampered in many ways; and “Mrs. Grundy” would have devoted to death by torture any young girl who could have done so heinous a thing as take a journey of observation by herself! Miss Legaré, therefore, was shut in to contemplation of the boundless ocean and the swamp forest almost as limitless. Dark scenes and deep shadows, with warm glowing skies became features in her paintings, and her trees of great variety, clear, deep water, and skies were pronounced by critics superior to those of the artists she most admired. She adopted in a measure the style of Ruysdael, mingled, in the more delicate shades, with the warmth of Cuyp. In the summer of 1833 her longing wish was gratified. She went, accompanied by her mother, to spend the warm season amid the glorious mountain scenery of the Blue Ridge in North Carolina. This region has been thought to surpass in magnificence and majesty any mountainous district in the Atlantic States. Miss Legaré was far more delighted with these mountains than with the scenery of Lake George and the Hudson, which she had visited the year before, finding it, as well as the Alleghany range, to disappoint her expectations. But when, on her approach to Asheville, her eyes rested on the exhaustless variety of form and tint, blended into soft harmony, on the distant Blue Ridge, the beauty and sublimity of the scene filled her with emotions she had no language to express. There was awful grandeur as well as touching loveliness in the view. Pisgah and surrounding peaks towering skyward--the summit covered with vapor that glowed with gorgeous colors, like a drapery of scarlet and gold--the vast mass played on by the mellow purple and violet tints peculiar to lofty mountains--the delicate azure mingling with fairy lights of golden violet--all softened into harmony by an atmosphere so transparent, so Claude-like in its purity, that it seemed the movement of a bird could be discerned at a distance of forty or fifty miles! Miss Legaré here realized, for the first time, what few out of Italy can realize, the naturalness of Claude’s landscapes; the exquisite art of his unequaled coloring, which gives to his delineations of Alpine scenery so wonderful an effect.