When his first pictures were rejected by the Royal Academy he showed
one of them to Sir Benjamin West, who said hopefully: "Don't be
disheartened, young man, we shall hear of you again; you must have
loved nature very much before you could have painted this."

About that time he tried to paint many kinds of pictures, such as
portraits and sacred subjects, but he did not seem to succeed in
anything except the scenes of his boyhood, which he truly loved. Hence
he gave up attempting that which he could do only passably, and kept
to what he could do supremely well.

When his friends wished him to continue portrait painting, the only
thing that was well paid at that time, Constable wrote: "You know I
have always succeeded best with my native scenes. They have always
charmed me, and I hope they always will. I have now a path marked out
very distinctly for myself, and I am desirous of pursuing it
uninterruptedly."

About the time he fell in love and before his father's death, his
health began to fail, and the young woman's mother would have none of
him. Her father was in favour of Constable, but he could not hold out
against the chance of his daughter losing her grandfather's fortune by
marrying the wrong man.

The lady was not so distractingly in love as young Constable was, and
she did not entirely like the idea of poverty, even with John, so she
held off, and with so much anxiety Constable became downright ill. For
five years the pair lived apart, and then the artist and the young
woman, whose name was Maria Bicknell, lost their mothers about the