His disposition was serious, and his conscience sensitive;
but he had a pleasant vein of humor, and a generous nature. After some
years of irksome work, he was sent to Paris to perfect himself in the
arts of ornamentation, and his residence there seems to have confirmed
his taste for painting, to the practice of which he desired to devote
his life. But for the next ten years he was engaged in business, giving,
however, his evenings and his few vacations to the study and practice of
Art, and becoming more and more eager to leave an employment which was
wholly uncongenial to him. At length, in his thirtieth year, he was able
to begin his career as a professional artist. His experiences at first
differed but little from those of the common run of young painters; but
his fidelity in work, his conscientious rendering of the details of
Nature, and his sincerity of purpose, gave real worth even to his
earlier pictures, and brought him into relations of cordial
friendship with Holman Hunt, Madox Brown, and others of the heads of
Pre-Raphaelitism. After making a long visit, in company with Hunt,
for the purposes of study, to Egypt and Palestine, and painting a few
remarkable pictures, he returned home, and was married.
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