Specialities in painting.--Wyld's practice.--Projected voyage on the Loire.--Birth of the Prince Imperial.--Scepticism about his inheritance of the crown.--The Imperial family.--I return home.--Value of the French language to me.
My first encampment in Lancashire.--Value of encamping as a part of educational discipline.--Happy days in camp.--The natural and the artificial in landscape.--Sir James Kay Shuttleworth's Exhibition project.--I decline to take an active part in it.--His energetic and laborious disposition.--Charlotte Brontë.--General Scarlett.
I visit the homes of my forefathers at Hamerton, Wigglesworth, and Hellifield Peel.--Attainder and execution of Sir Stephen Hamerton. --Return of Hellifield Peel to the family.--Sir Richard.--The Hamertons distinguished only for marrying heiresses.--Another visit to the Peel, when I see my father's cousin.--Nearness of Hellifield Peel and Hollins.
Expedition to the Highlands in 1857.--Kindness of the Marquis of Breadalbane and others.--Camp life, its strong and peculiar attraction.--My servant.--Young Helliwell.--Scant supplies in the camp.--Nature of the camp.--Necessity for wooden floors in a bad climate.--Double-hulled boats.--Practice of landscape- painting.--Changes of effect.--Influences that governed my way of study in those days.--Attractive character of the Scottish Highlands.--Their scenery not well adapted for beginners.--My intense love of it.
Small immediate results of the expedition to the Highlands.--Unsuitable system of work.--Loss of time.--I rent the house and island of Innistrynich.--My dread of marriage and the reasons for it.--Notwithstanding this I make an offer and am refused.--Two young ladies of my acquaintance.--Idea of a foreign marriage.--Its inconveniences.--Decision to ask for the hand of Mdlle. Gindriez.--I go to Paris and am accepted.--Elective affinities.
Reception at home after engagement.--Preparations at Innistrynich.--I arrive alone in Paris.--My marriage.--The religious ceremony.--An uncomfortable wedding.--The sea from Dieppe.--London.--The Academy Exhibition of 1858.--Impressions of a Frenchwoman.--The Turner collection.--The town.--Loch Awe.--The element wanting to happiness.
My first sight of Loch Awe.--Arrival at Innistrynich.--Our domestic life.--Difficulties about provisions.--A kitchen-garden.