Probably it was quite of his own free will that my father broke up the country home, and brought to a close a period which he afterwards regarded as, on the whole, the happiest of his life. Being now 28 years old, he may have begun to feel that a manly career involved something more than mere enthusiasm for art and literature—more than a practice such as his had been for the last seven years. He still “believed in art (however foolishly); he believed in men (as he read of them in books);” he had “spent years of hard study and reading, and wished to do good with his knowledge. He thought also it might, with unwavering industry, help towards an honest maintenance.” At last even some prickings of ambition may have prompted him to join the ranks of the stern mercenaries who are eternally thronging to the front, there to fall or become honourable. The little “independence,” as he called it, upon which he had so long contrived to live in contentment and even in a kind of luxury seemed to shrink into its true proportions; so, at last, he determined to return to London. He settled in a small house he had bought with the proceeds of a bequest, in Grove Street, Lisson Grove, where he was within easy reach of Mr. Linnell at Bayswater, and of his old friend Mr. Edward Calvert, then living at Park Place, Paddington.