"Who,"  he  said,  ''ought  not  to  feel  humble
before  a  painting  of  Titian's  or  Correggio'sl
It  is  only  when  we  feel  so  that  we  can  appre-
ciate a  great  work  of  art."    He  believed  that


136  CAMBRIDGE    SKETCHES

an  important  moral  lesson  could  be  inculcated
by  a  picture  as  well  as  by  a  poem, — even  by  a
realistic  Dutch  painting.  ^ '  Women  worship  the
Venus  of  Milo  now,"  he  said,  '^just  as  they  did
in  ancient  Greece,  and  it  is  good  for  them,
too.'^  He  respected  William  Morris  Hunt
as  the  best  American  painter  of  his  time,  but
thought  he  would  be  a  better  painter  if  he  were
not  so  proud.  Pride  leads  to  arrogance,  and
arrogance  is  blinding.
After  he  came  into  possession  of  his  inheri-
tance he  showed  that  he  could  make  a  good  use
of  money.  One  of  his  first  acts  was  to  purchase
a  set  of  engravings  in  the  Vatican,  valued  at  ten
thousand  dollars,  for  the  Boston  Public  Li-
brary. ^'I  was  not  such  a  fool  as  to  pay  that
sum  for  it,  though, ' '  he  remarked  to  Eev.  Sam-
uel Longfellow.  He  visited  the  studios  of
struggling  artists  in  Rome  and  Boston,  gave
them  advice  and  encouragement, — made  pur-
chases himself,  sometimes,  and  advised  his
friends  to  purchase  when  he  found  a  painting
that  was  really  excellent.  He  also  purchased
some  valuable  old  paintings  to  adorn  his  house
on  Commonwealth  Avenue.
He  placed  two  of  these  at  one  time  on  free  ex-
hibition at  DolPs  picture-store,  and  going  into
the  rooms  where  they  hung,  I  found  Tom  Ap-
pleton  explaining  their  merits  to  a  group  of
remarkably  pretty  school-girls.
