failings of the same
kind and I could recollect any instances where you had spoken pettishly
or ill-natured to me, our accounts would then have been balanced, they
would have called for mutual forgetfulness and forgiveness; but when, on
reflection, I find nothing of the kind to charge you with, my conscience
severely upbraids me with ingratitude to you, to whom (under Heaven) I
owe all the little knowledge of my art which I possess. But I hope still
I shall prove grateful to you; at any rate, I feel my errors and must
mend them."

Mr. Allston thus answers this frank appeal for forgiveness:--

MY DEAR SIR,--I will not apologize for having so long delayed answering
your kind letter, being, as you well know, privileged by my friends to be
a lazy correspondent. I was sorry to find that you should have suffered
the recollection of any hasty expressions you might have uttered to give
you uneasiness. Be assured that they never were remembered by me a moment
after, nor did they ever in the slightest degree diminish my regard or
weaken my confidence in the sincerity of your friendship or the goodness
of your heart. Besides, the consciousness of warmth in my own temper
would have made me inexcusable had I suffered myself to dwell on an
inadvertent word from another. I therefore beg you will no longer suffer
any such unpleasant reflections to disturb your mind, but that you will
rest assured of my unaltered and sincere esteem.

Your letter and one I had about the same time from my sister Mary brought
the first intelligence of the sale of my picture, it being near three
weeks later when I received the account from Philadelphia. When you
recollect that I considered the "Dead Man" (from the untoward fate he had
hitherto experienced) almost literally as a _caput mortuum_, you may
easily believe that I was most agreeably surprised to hear of the sale.
But, pleased as I was on account of the very seasonable pecuniary supply
it would soon afford me, I must say that I was still more gratified at
the encouragement it seemed to hold out for my return to America.

His friend Leslie, in a letter from London of May 7, 1816, writes: "Mr.
West said your picture would have been more likely than any of them to
obtain the prize had you remained."

In another letter from Leslie of September 6, 1816, occurs this amusing
passage:--

"The _Catalogue Raisonne_ appeared according to promise, but is not near
so good as the one last year. At the conc