[To Henry W. Longfellow]London, 1856
. . . Imagine what zeal, patience, boldness, and love of Nature are in these [pre-Raphaelite] pictures; and with these the Anglo-Saxon awkwardness, crudity, and poor sentiment. Still, after seeing the Vernon collection one can't but think better and better of the direction of the new school. One thing I find not stated of it,--how much it owes to the daguerrotype. The fine, minute finish, and the breadth at the same time they give; and absolutely they manage to have the same defects,--edginess and want of roundness. . . Ticknor looks wonderfully natural in the Twistleton house. It has a library, the historic background for him, and the Dwight Allston, looking well. He invited, the other day, Mackintosh and myself to meet Thackeray. It was very pleasant. Thackeray seemed to remember the Yankee sunshine, and expanded, and looked well, though but lately recovering from an illness. . . .
-from The Friendly Craft: a Collection of American Letters edited by Elizabeth Deering Hanscom, Ph.D. (New York: Macmillan, 1908) p. 170-171.
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