"
In 1811, I went on a second trip to Philadelphia, and executed the
object of it with a success equal to my initial visit. On this trip I
had letters to some gentlemen at Philadelphia, who received me in a most
clever spirit, and I visited the Academy of Arts, Peale's Museum, the
Water Works, Navy Yard, &c. I here received my first definite ideas of
painting and sculpture. I returned with new stores of information and
new ideas of the world, but I had lost little or nothing of my primitive
simplicity of feeling or rustic notions of human perfection. And, as I
began to see something of the iniquities of men, I clung more firmly to
my native opinions.
My personal knowledge of my native State, and of the States of New
Jersey and Pennsylvania, was now superior to that of most men with whom
I was in the habit of conversing, and I subsequently made several little
journeys and excursions that furthered me in the knowledge.
As yet, I knew nothing by personal observation of New England. In the
early part of 1813, having completed my nineteenth year, I went to
Middlebury, in Vermont, on the banks of Otter Creek, where, I
understand, my great-grandfather, who was an Englishman, to have died.
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