if hours and not years had passed since then. They bring to the mind's
eye many dear ones who have passed away, and remind us that we too must
follow them.

It is much to be regretted that this valuable art of graphic memoranda
is not more generally practised. It is not merely a most valuable help
to the memory, but it educates the eye and the hand, and enables us to
cultivate the faculty of definite observation. This is one of the most
valuable accomplishments that I know of, being the means of storing up
ideas, and not mere words, in the mental recollection of both men and
women.

Before I proceed to record the recollections of my own life, I wish to
say something about my eldest brother Patrick, the well-known landscape
painter. He was twenty-one years older than myself! My father was his
best and almost his only instructor. At a very early age he manifested
a decided taste for drawing and painting. His bent was landscape.
This gave my father great pleasure, as it was his own favourite branch
of art. The boy acquired great skill in sketching trees, clouds,
plants, and foregrounds. He studied with wonderful assiduity and
success. I possess many of his graphic memoranda, which show the care
and industry with which he educated his eye and hand in rendering with
truth and fidelity the intimate details of his art. The wild plants
which he introduced into the foregrounds of his pictures were his
favourite objects of study. But of all portions of landscape nature,
the Sky was the one that most delighted him. He studied the form and
character of clouds--resting cloud, the driving cloud, and the rain
cloud--and the sky portions of his paintings were thus rendered so
beautifully attractive.