* * * * *
“_Friday, 25th August._ Dreadful still; blowing harder and harder; quite a storm and a lee shore; breakers in sight, tacked and stood over again to the Irish shore under close-reefed topsails. At night saw Waterford light again.
* * * * *
“_Monday, 28th August._ A fair wind springing up (ten o’clock). Going at the rate of seven knots on our true course. We have had just a week of the most disagreeable weather possible. I hope this is the beginning of better winds, and that, in reasonable time, we shall see our native shore.
“_Tuesday, 29th August._ Still disappointed in fair winds…. Since, then, I can find nothing consoling on deck, let us see what is in the cabin. All of us make six, four gentlemen and two ladies. Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Drake, Captain Chamberlain, Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Lancaster, and myself. Our amusements are eating and drinking, sleeping and backgammon. Seasickness we have thrown overboard, and, all things considered, we try to enjoy ourselves and sometimes succeed.
* * * * *
“_Thursday, 31st August._ Wind as directly ahead as it can blow; squally all night and tremendous sea. What a contrast does this voyage make with my first. This day makes the tenth day out and we have advanced towards home about three hundred miles. In my last voyage, on the tenth day, we had accomplished one half our voyage, sixteen hundred miles.
“_Friday, 1st September._ Dreadful weather; wind still ahead; foggy, rainy, and heavy swell; patience almost exhausted, but the will of Heaven be done. If this weather is to continue I hope we shall have fortitude to bear it. All is for the best.
“_Saturday, 9th September._ Nineteenth day out and not yet more than one third of our way to Boston. Oh! when shall we end this tedious passage?
“_Sunday, 10th September._ Calm with dreadful sea. Early this morning discovered a large ship to the southward, dismasted, probably in the late gale. Discovered an unpleasant trait in our captain’s character which I shall merely allude to. I am sorry to say he did not demonstrate that promptitude to assist a fellow creature in distress which I expected to find inherent in a seaman’s breast, and especially in an American seaman’s. It was not till after three or four hours’ delay, and until the entreaties of his passengers and some threatening murmurs on my part of a public exposure in Boston of his conduct, that he ordered the ship to bear down upon the wreck, and then with slackened sail and much grumbling. A ship and a brig were astern of us, and, though farther by some miles from the distressed ship than we were, they instantly bore down for her, and rendered her this evening the assistance we might have done at noon. We are now standing on our way with a fair wind springing up at southeast, which I suppose will last a few hours. Spent the day in religious exercises, and was happy to observe on the part of the rest of the passengers a due regard for the solemnity of the day.
“_Monday, 11th September._ Wind still ahead and the sky threatening.–Ten o’clock. Beginning to blow hard; taking in sails one after another.– Three o’clock. A perfect storm; the gale a few days ago but a gentle breeze to it…. I never witnessed so tremendous a gale; the wind blowing so that it can scarcely be faced; the sea like ink excepting the whiteness of the surge, which is carried into the air like clouds of dust, or like the driving of snow. The wind piping through our bare rigging sounds most terrific; indeed, it is a most awful sight. The sea in mountains breaking over our bows, and a single wave dispersing in mist through the violence of the storm; ship rolling to such a degree that we are compelled to keep our berths; cabin dark with the deadlights in. Oh! who would go to sea when he can stay on shore! The wind in southwest driving us back again, so that we are losing all the advantages of our fair wind of yesterday, which lasted, as I supposed, two or three hours.
* * * * *
“_Tuesday, 12th September._ Gale abated, but head wind still….
“_Wednesday, 13th September._ All last night a tremendous storm from northwest.
“_Thursday, 14th September._ The storm increased to a tremendous height last night. The clouds at sunset were terrific in the extreme, and, in the evening, still more so with lightning. The sea has risen frightfully and everything wears a most alarming aspect. At 3 A.M. a squall struck us and laid us almost wholly under water; we came near losing our foremast…. None of us able to sleep from the dreadful noises; creakings and howlings and thousands of indescribable sounds. Lord! who can endure the terror of thy storm!… Yesterday’s sea was as molehills to mountains compared with the sea to-day….
“_Friday, 15th September._ The storm somewhat abated this morning, but still blowing hard from southwest…. Twenty-four days out to-day.
“_Saturday, 16th September._ Blowing a gale of wind from southwest. Noon almost calm for half an hour, when, on a sudden, the wind shifted to the northeast, when it blew such a hurricane that every one on board declared they never saw its equal. For four hours it blew so hard that all the sea was in a perfect foam, and resembled a severe snowstorm more than a dry blow. If the wind roared before, it now shrilly whistled through our rigging.”
After some days of calm with winds sometimes favorable but light, and, when fresh, ahead, the journal continues:–
“_Monday, 25th September._ Another gale of wind last night, ahead, dreadful sea; took in sail and lay to all night…. Beginning to think of our provisions; bread mouldy and little left; sugar, little left; fresh provisions, little left; beans, none left; salt pork, little left; salt beef, a plenty; water, plenty; stores of passengers, some gone and the rest drawing to a conclusion; patience drawing to a conclusion; in short all is falling short and drawing to a conclusion except _our voyage and my journal_….
“_Tuesday, 26th September._… Find our captain to be a complete old woman; takes in sail at night and never knows when to set it again; the longer we know him, the more surly he grows; he is not even civil…. Several large turtles passed within a few feet of us yesterday and to-day, and, considering we are near the end of our provisions, one would have thought our captain would be anxious to take them; but no, it was too much trouble to lower the boat from the stern.
* * * * *
“_Friday, 29th September._ Last night another dreadful gale, as severe as any since we have been out.
* * * * *
“_Monday, 2d October._ Last night another gale of wind from northwest and is this morning still blowing hard and cold from the same quarter. What a dreadful passage is ours; we seem destined to have no fair wind, and to have a gale of wind every other day.
“_Saturday, 7th October._ Wind still ahead and blowing hard; very cold and dismal. Oh! when shall we see home!… I thought I could observe a kind of warfare between the different winds since we have been at sea. The west wind seems to be the tyrant at present, as it were the Bonaparte of the air. He has been blowing his gales very lavishly, and no other wind has been able to check him with any success.
“I recollect on one day, while it was calm, a thick bank of clouds began to rise in the northeast; no other clouds were in the sky. They rose gently in the calm as if fearful of rousing their deadly foe in the west. Now they had gained one third of the heavens when, behold, in the southwest another bank of thick black clouds came rolling up, and, reddening in the rays of the setting sun, marched on, teeming with fury. They soon gained the middle of the heavens where the frightened northeast had not yet reached. They met, they mixed, the routed northeast skulked back, while the thick column of the southwest, having driven back its enemy, slowly returned to its repose, proudly displaying a thousand various colors, as if for victory.
“At another time success seemed to be more in favor of the northeast; for, shortly after this great defeat, the southwest came forth and, like a petty tyrant intoxicated with success, began to oppress the subject ocean. It blew its gales and filled the air with clouds and rain and fog. Suddenly the northeast, as under cover of the darkness, and as one driven to desperation, burst forth on its too confident enemy with redoubled fury. Old ocean groans at the dreadful conflict; for, as in the warring of two hostile armies on the domains of a neutral, the neutral suffers most severely, so the neutral ocean seemed doomed to bear the weight of all their rancor. The southwest flies affrighted. And now the northeast, vaunting forth, stalks with the rage of an angry demon over the waters; the ocean foams beneath his breath, it steams and smokes and heaves in agony its troubled bosom.
“But, alas! how few can bear prosperity; how few, when victory crowns their efforts, can rule with moderation; how often, does it happen that we reenact the same scenes for which we punished our enemy. For now has the northeast become the tyrant and rules with tenfold rigor; he pours forth all his strength and, drunk with success as soldiers after a victory, at length sinks away into an inglorious calm.
“Now does the southwest collect his routed forces, checked but not conquered; he again advances on his recreant foe and seizes the vacant throne without a struggle. Ill-fated northeast! hadst thou but ruled with moderation when thou hadst gained, with masterly manoeuvre, the throne of the air; hadst thou reserved thy forces against surprise, and not, with prodigal profuseness, lavished them on thy harmless subjects, thou hadst still been monarch of the sea and air; all would have blessed thee as the restorer of peace, and as the deliverer of the ocean from western despotism. But alas! how art thou fallen an everlasting example of overreaching oppression.
“This evening there is a fine fair wind from northeast carrying us on at the rate of five or six knots. This is the cause of the foregoing rhapsody. Had it been otherwise than a fair wind I should never have been in spirits to have written so much stuff.”
Still tantalized by baffling head winds and alternating calms and gales, they were, however, gradually approaching the coast. Omitting the entries of the next eleven days, I shall quote the final pages of the journal.
“_Wednesday, 18th October._ Last night was a sleepless night to us all. Everything wore the appearance of a hard storm; all was dull in the cabin; scarce a word was spoken; every one wore a serious aspect and, as any one came from the deck into the cabin, the rest put up an inquisitive and apprehensive look, with now and then a faint, ‘Well, how does it look now?’ Our captain, as well as the passenger captain, were both alarmed, and were poring over the chart in deep deliberation. A syllable was now and then caught from them, but all seemed despairing.
“At ten o’clock we lay to till twelve; at four again till five. Rainy, thick, and hazy, but not blowing very hard. All is dull and dismal; a dreadful state of suspense, between feelings of exquisite joy in the hope of soon seeing home, and feelings of gloomy apprehension that a few hours may doom us to destruction.
“_Half-past seven._… Heaven be praised! The joyful tidings are just announced of _Land!!_ Oh! who can conceive our feelings now? The wretch condemned to the scaffold, who receives, at the moment he expects to die, the joyful reprieve, he can best conceive the state of our minds.
“The land is Cape Cod, distant about ten miles. Joyful, joyful is the thought. To-night we shall, in all probability, be in Boston. We are going at the rate of seven knots.
“_Half-past 9._ Manomet land in sight.
“_Ten o’clock._ Cape Ann in sight.
“_Eleven o’clock._ Boston Light in sight.
“_One o’clock._ HOME!!!”
[Illustration:
On board the Ship Ceres
Boston Harbour
My Dear Parents,
Thanks to a kind Providence who
has preserved me through all dangers, I have at length arrived in my native land. I send this just to prepare you, I shall be with you as soon as I can possibly get on shore. We have had 58 days passage long, boisterous, and dangerous, but more when I see you. Pray tell me
by the bearer if I shall find all well.
Your very affectionate Son,
Samuel B. Morse
October 18, 1875]
CHAPTER X
APRIL 10, 1816–OCTOBER 5, 1818
Very little success at home.–Portrait of ex-President John Adams.– Letter to Allston on sale of his “Dead Man restored to Life.”–Also apologizes for hasty temper.–Reassured by Allston.–Humorous letter from Leslie.–Goes to New Hampshire to paint portraits.–Concord.–Meets Miss Lucretia Walker.–Letters to his parents concerning her.–His parents reply.–Engaged to Miss Walker.–His parents approve.–Many portraits painted.–Miss Walker’s parents consent.–Success in Portsmouth.–Morse and his brother invent a pump.–Highly endorsed by President Day and Eli Whitney.–Miss Walker visits Charlestown.–Morse’s religious convictions.–More success in New Hampshire.–Winter in Charleston, South Carolina.–John A. Alston.–Success.–Returns north.–Letter from his uncle Dr. Finley.–Marriage.
There is no record of the meeting of the parents and the long-absent son, but it is easy to picture the joy of that occasion, and to imagine the many heart-to-heart conversations when all differences, political and otherwise, were smoothed over.
He remained at home that winter, but seems to have met with but slight success in his profession. His “Judgment of Jupiter” was much admired, but found no purchaser, nor did he receive any commissions for such large historical paintings as it was his ambition to produce. He was asked by a certain Mr. Joseph Delaplaine, of Philadelphia, to paint a portrait of ex-President John Adams for _half_ price, the portrait to be engraved and included in “Delaplaine’s Repository of the Lives and Portraits of Distinguished American Characters,” and, from letters of a later date, I believe that Morse consented to this.
It appears that he must also have received but few, if any, orders for portraits, for, in the following summer, he started on a painting tour through New Hampshire, which proved to be of great moment to him in more ways than one.
Before we follow him on that tour, however, I shall quote from a letter written by him to his friend Washington Allston:–
Boston, April 10, 1816.
MY DEAR SIR,–I have but one moment to write you by a vessel which sails to-morrow morning. I wrote Leslie by New Packet some months since and am hourly expecting an answer.
I congratulate you, my dear sir, on the sale of your picture of the “Dead Man.” I suppose you will have received notice, before this reaches you, that the Philadelphia Academy of Arts have purchased it for the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars. Bravo for our country!
I am sincerely rejoiced for you and for the disposition which it shows of future encouragement. I really think the time is not far distant when we shall be able to settle in our native land with profit as well as pleasure. Boston seems struggling in labor to bring forth an institution for the arts, but it will miscarry; I find it is all forced. They can talk, and talk, and say what a fine thing it would be, but nothing is done. I find by experience that what you have often observed to me with respect to settling in Boston is well founded. I think it will be the last in the arts, though, without doubt, it is capable of being the first, if the fit would only take them. Oh! how I miss you, my dear sir. I long to spend my evenings again with you and Leslie. I shall certainly visit Italy (should I live and no unforeseen event take place) in the course of a year or eighteen months. Could there not be some arrangement made to meet you and Leslie there?
He lived, but the “unforeseen event” occurred to make him alter all his plans. Further on in this same letter he says:–
“My conscience accuses me, and hardly too, of many instances of pettishness and ill-humor towards you, which make me almost hate myself that I could offend a temper like yours. I need not ask you to forgive it; I know you cannot harbor anger a minute, and perhaps have forgotten the instances; but I cannot forget them. If you had failings of the same kind and I could recollect any instances where you had spoken pettishly or ill-natured to me, our accounts would then have been balanced, they would have called for mutual forgetfulness and forgiveness; but when, on reflection, I find nothing of the kind to charge you with, my conscience severely upbraids me with ingratitude to you, to whom (under Heaven) I owe all the little knowledge of my art which I possess. But I hope still I shall prove grateful to you; at any rate, I feel my errors and must mend them.”
Mr. Allston thus answers this frank appeal for forgiveness:–
MY DEAR SIR,–I will not apologize for having so long delayed answering your kind letter, being, as you well know, privileged by my friends to be a lazy correspondent. I was sorry to find that you should have suffered the recollection of any hasty expressions you might have uttered to give you uneasiness. Be assured that they never were remembered by me a moment after, nor did they ever in the slightest degree diminish my regard or weaken my confidence in the sincerity of your friendship or the goodness of your heart. Besides, the consciousness of warmth in my own temper would have made me inexcusable had I suffered myself to dwell on an inadvertent word from another. I therefore beg you will no longer suffer any such unpleasant reflections to disturb your mind, but that you will rest assured of my unaltered and sincere esteem.
Your letter and one I had about the same time from my sister Mary brought the first intelligence of the sale of my picture, it being near three weeks later when I received the account from Philadelphia. When you recollect that I considered the “Dead Man” (from the untoward fate he had hitherto experienced) almost literally as a _caput mortuum_, you may easily believe that I was most agreeably surprised to hear of the sale. But, pleased as I was on account of the very seasonable pecuniary supply it would soon afford me, I must say that I was still more gratified at the encouragement it seemed to hold out for my return to America.
His friend Leslie, in a letter from London of May 7, 1816, writes: “Mr. West said your picture would have been more likely than any of them to obtain the prize had you remained.”
In another letter from Leslie of September 6, 1816, occurs this amusing passage:–
“The _Catalogue Raisonne_ appeared according to promise, but is not near so good as the one last year. At the conclusion the author says that Mr. Payne Knight told the directors it was the custom of the Greek nobility to strip and exhibit themselves naked to the artists in various attitudes, that they might have an opportunity of studying fine form. Accordingly those public-spirited men, the directors, have determined to adopt the plan, and are all practising like mad to prepare themselves for the ensuing exhibition, when they are to be placed on pedestals.
“It is supposed that Sir G. Beaumont, Mr. Long, Mr. Knight, etc., will occupy the principal lights. The Marquis of Stafford, unfortunately, could not recollect the attitude of any one antique figure, but was found practising having the head of the Dying Gladiator, the body of the Hercules, one leg of the Apollo, and the other of the Dancing Faun, turned the wrong way. Lord Mulgrave, having a small head, thought of representing the Torso, but he did not know what to do with his legs, and was afraid that, as Master of the Ordnance, he could not dispense with his _arms_.”
In the beginning of August, 1816, the young man started out on his quest for money. This was frankly the object of his journey, but it was characteristic of his buoyant and yet conscientious nature that, having once made up his mind to give up, for the present, all thoughts of pursuing the higher branches of his art, he took up with zest the painting of portraits.
So far from degrading his art by pursuing a branch of it which he held to be inferior, he still, by conscientious work, by putting the best of himself into it, raised it to a very high plane; for many of his portraits are now held by competent critics to rank high in the annals of art, by some being placed on a level with those of Gilbert Stuart.
On August 8, 1816, he writes to his parents from Concord, New Hampshire:–
“I have been in this place since Monday evening. I arrived safely…. Massabesek Pond is very beautiful, though seen on a dull day. I think that one or two elegant views might be made from it, and I think I must sketch it at some future period.
“I have as yet met with no success in portraits, but hope, by perseverance, I shall be able to find some. My stay in this place depends on that circumstance. If none offer, I shall go for Hanover on Saturday morning.
“The scenery is very fine on the Merrimack; many fine pictures could be made here alone. I made a little sketch near Contoocook Falls yesterday. I go this morning with Dr. McFarland to see some views. Colonel Kent’s family are very polite to me, and I never felt in better spirits; the weather is now fine and I feel as though I was growing fat.”
CONCORD, August 16, 1816.
I am still here and am passing my time very agreeably. I have painted five portraits at fifteen dollars each and have two more engaged and many more talked of. I think I shall get along well. I believe I could make an independent fortune in a few years if I devoted myself exclusively to portraits, so great is the desire for good portraits in the different country towns.
He must have been a very rapid worker to have painted five portraits in eight days; but, perhaps, on account of the very modest price he received, these were more in the nature of quick sketches.
The next letter is rather startling when we recall his recent assertions concerning “Mrs. Love” and the joys of a bachelor existence.
CONCORD, August 20, 1816.
MY DEAR PARENTS,–I write you a few lines just to say I am well and very industrious. Next day after to-morrow I shall have received one hundred dollars, which I think is pretty well for three weeks. I shall probably stay here a fortnight from yesterday.
I have other attractions besides money in this place. Do you know the Walkers of this place? Charles Walker Esq., son of Judge Walker, has two daughters, the elder, very beautiful, amiable, and of an excellent disposition. This is her character in town. I have enquired particularly of Dr. McFarland respecting the family, and his answer is every way satisfactory, except that they are not professors of religion. He is a man of family and great wealth. This last, you know, I never made a principal object, but it is somewhat satisfactory to know that in my profession.
I may flatter myself, but I think I might be a successful suitor.
You will, perhaps, think me a terrible harum-scarum fellow to be continually falling in love in this way, but I have a dread of being an old bachelor, and I am now twenty-five years of age.
There is still no need of hurry; the young lady is but sixteen. But all this is thinking aloud to you; I make you my confidants; I wish your advice; nothing shall be done precipitately.
Of course all that I say is between you and me, for it all may come to nothing; I have _some experience_ that way.
What I have done I have done prayerfully. I have prayed to the Giver of every good gift that He will direct me in this business; that, if it will not be to his glory and the good of his Kingdom, He will frustrate all; that, if He grants me prosperity, He will grant me a heart to use it aright; and, if adversity, that He will teach me submission to his will; and that, whatever may be my lot here, I may not fall short of eternal happiness hereafter.
I hope you will remember me in your prayers, and especially in reference to a connection in life.
I do not think that his parents took this matter very seriously at first. His was an intensely affectionate nature, and they had often heard these same raptures before. However, like wise parents, they did not scoff. His mother wrote on August 23, 1816, in answer: “With respect to the other confidential matter, I hope the Lord will direct you to a proper choice. We know nothing of the family, good or bad. We do not wish you to be an old bachelor, nor do we wish you to precipitate yourself and others into difficulties which you cannot get rid of.”
In the same letter his father says: “In regard to the subject on which you ask our advice, we refer it, after the experience you have had, and with the advice you have often had from us, to your own judgment. Be not hasty in entering into any engagement; enquire with caution and delicacy; do everything that is honorable and gentlemanly respecting yourself and those concerned. ‘Pause, ponder, sift.–Judge before friendship–then confide till death.’ (Young.) Above all, commit the subject to God in prayer and ask his guidance and blessing. I am glad to find you are doing this.”
How well he obeyed his father’s injunctions may be gathered from the following letter, which speaks for itself:–
CONCORD, September 2, 1816.
MY DEAR PARENTS,–I have just received yours of August 29. I leave town to-morrow morning, probably for Hanover, as there is no conveyance direct to Walpole.
I have had no more portraits since I wrote you, so that I have received just one hundred dollars in Concord. The last I took for ten dollars, as the person I painted obtained four of my sitters for me….
With respect to the confidential affair, everything is successful beyond my most sanguine expectations. The more I know of her the more amiable she appears. She is very beautiful and yet no coquetry; she is modest, quite to diffidence, and yet frank and open-hearted. Wherever I have enquired concerning her I have invariably heard the same character of–“remarkably amiable, modest, and of a sweet disposition.” When you learn that this is the case I think you will not accuse me of being hasty in bringing the affair to a crisis. I ventured to tell her my whole heart, and instead of obscure and ambiguous answers, which some would have given to tantalize and pain one, she frankly, but modestly and timidly, told me it was mutual. Suffice it to say we are _engaged_.
If I know my parents I know they will be pleased with this amiable girl. Unless I was confident of it, I should never have been so hasty. I have not yet mentioned it to her parents; she requested me to defer it till next summer, or till I see her again, lest she should be thought hasty. She is but sixteen and is willing to wait two or three years if it is for our mutual interest.
Never, never was a human being so blest as I am, and yet what an ungrateful wretch I have been. Pray for me that I may have a grateful heart, for I deserve nothing but adversity, and yet have the most unbounded prosperity.
The father replies to this characteristic letter on September 4, 1816:–
“I have just received yours of the 2d inst. Its contents were deeply interesting to us, as you will readily suppose. It accounts to us why you have made so long a stay at Concord…. So far as we can judge from your representations (which are all we have to judge from), we cannot refuse you our approbation, and we hope that the course, on which you have entered with your characteristic rapidity and decision, will be pursued and issue in a manner which will conduce to the happiness of all concerned….
“We think _her_ parents should be made acquainted with the state of the business, as she is so young and the thing so important to them.”
The son answers this letter, from Walpole, New Hampshire, on September 7, 1816, thus naively: “You think the parents of the young lady should be made acquainted with the state of the business. I feel some degree of awkwardness as it respects that part of the affair; I don’t know the manner in which it ought to be done. I wish you would have the goodness to write me immediately (at Walpole, to care of Thomas Bellows, Esq.) and inform me what I should say. Might I communicate the information by writing?”
Here he gives a detailed account of the family, and, for the first time, mentions the young lady’s name–Lucretia Pickering Walker–and continues:–
“You ask how the family have treated me. They are all aware of the attachment between us, for I have made my attention so open and so marked that they all must have perceived it. I know that Lucretia must have had some conversation with her mother on the subject, for she told me one day, when I asked her what her mother thought of my constant visits, that her mother said she ‘didn’t think I cared much about her,’ in a pleasant way. All the family have been extremely polite and attentive to me; I received constant invitations to dinner and tea, indeed every encouragement was given me….
“I painted two hasty sketches of scenery in Concord. I meet with no success in Walpole. _Quacks_ have been before me.”
There is always a touch of quaint, dry humor in his mother’s letters in spite of their great seriousness, as witness the following extracts from a letter of September 9, 1816:–
“We hope you will feel more than ever the absolute necessity laid upon you to procure for yourself and those you love a maintenance, as neither of you can subsist long upon air…. Remember it takes a great many hundred dollars to _make_ and to _keep_ the pot a-boiling.
“I wish to see the young lady who has captivated you so much. I hope she loves religion, and that, if you and she form a connection for life, some _five or six years hence_, you may go hand in hand to that better world where they neither marry nor are given in marriage….
“You have not given us any satisfaction in respect to many things about the young lady which you ought to suppose we should be anxious to know. All you have told us is that she is handsome and amiable. These are good as far as they go, but there are a great many etcs., etcs., that we want to know.
“Is she acquainted with domestic affairs? Does she respect and love religion? How many brothers and sisters has she? How old are they? Is she healthy? How old are her parents? What will they be likely to do for her some years hence, say when she is twenty years old?
“In your next answer at least some of these questions. You see your mother has not lived twenty-seven years in New England without learning to ask questions.”
These questions he had already answered in a letter which must have crossed his mother’s.
On September 23, 1816, he writes from Windsor, Vermont:–
“I am still here but shall probably leave in a week or two. I long to get home, or, at least, as far on my way as _Concord_. I think I shall be tempted to stay a week or two there…. I do not like Windsor very much. It is a very dissipated place, and dissipation, too, of the lowest sort. There is very little gentleman’s society.”
WINDSOR, VERMONT, September 28, 1816.
I am still in this place…. I have written Lucretia on the subject of acquainting her parents, and I have no doubt she will assent…. I hear her spoken of in this part of the country as very celebrated, both for her beauty and, particularly, for her disposition; and this I have heard without there being the slightest suspicion of any attachment, or even acquaintance, between us. This augurs well most certainly. I know she is considered in Concord as the first girl in the place. (You know I always aimed highest.) The more I think of this attachment the more I think I shall not regret the _haste_ (if it may be so called) of this proposed connection….
I am doing pretty well in this place, better than I expected; I have one more portrait to do before I leave it…. I should have business, I presume, to last me some weeks if I could stay, but I long to get home _through Concord_….
Mama’s scheme of painting a large landscape and selling it to General Bradley for two hundred dollars, must give place to another which has just come into my head: that of sending to you for my great canvas and painting the quarrel at Dartmouth College, as large as life, with all the portraits of the trustees, overseers, officers of college, and students; and, if I finish it next week, to ask five thousand dollars for it and then come home in a coach and six and put Ned to the blush with his nineteen subscribers a day. Only think, $5000 a week is $260,000 a year, and, if I live ten years, I shall be worth $2,600,000; a very pretty fortune for this time of day. Is it not a grand scheme?
The remark concerning his brother Sidney Edwards’s subscribers refers to a religious newspaper, the “Boston Recorder,” founded and edited by him. It was one of the first of the many religious journals which, since that time, have multiplied all over the country.
Continuing his modestly successful progress, he writes next from Hanover, on October 3, 1816:–
“I arrived in this place on Tuesday evening and am painting away with all my might. I am painting Judge Woodward and lady, and think I shall have many more engaged than I can do. I painted seven portraits at Windsor, one for my board and lodging at the inn, and one for ten dollars, very small, to be sent in a letter to a great distance; so that in all I received eighty-five dollars in money. I have five more engaged at Windsor for next summer. So you see I have not been idle.
“I _must_ spend a fortnight at Concord, so that I shall not probably be at home till early in November.
“I think, with proper management, that I have but little to fear as to this world. I think I can, with industry, average from two to three thousand dollars a year, which is a tolerable income, though _not equal to_ $2,600,000!”
CONCORD, October 14, 1816.
I arrived here on Friday evening in good health and spirits from Hanover. I painted four portraits altogether in Hanover, and have many engaged for next summer. I presume I shall paint some here, though I am uncertain.
I found Lucretia in good health, very glad to see me. She improves on acquaintance; she is, indeed, a most amiable, affectionate girl; I know you will love her. She has consented that I should inform her parents of our attachment. I have, accordingly, just sent a letter to her father (twelve o’clock), and am now in a state of suspense anxiously waiting his answer. Before I close this, I hope to give you the result.
_Five o’clock._ I have just called and had a conversation (by request) with Mr. Walker, and I have the satisfaction to say: “I have Lucretia’s parents’ entire approbation.” Everything successful! Praise be to the giver of every good gift! What, indeed, shall I render to Him for all his unmerited and continually increasing mercies and blessings?
In a letter to Miss Walker from a girl friend we find the following:–
“You appear to think, dear Lucretia, that I am possessed of quite an insensible _heart_; pardon me if I say the same of you, for I have heard that several have become candidates for your affections, but that you remained unmoved until Mr. M., of Charlestown, made his appearance, when, I understand, you did hope that his sentiments in your favor were reciprocal.
“I rejoice to hear this, for, though I am unacquainted with that gentleman, yet, when I heard he was likely to become a successful suitor, I have made some enquiries concerning him, and find he is possessed of every excellent and amiable quality that I should wish the person to have who was to become the husband of so dear a friend as yourself.”
Morse must have returned home about the end of October, for we find no more letters until the 14th of December, when he writes from Portsmouth, New Hampshire:–
“I should have written you sooner but I have been employed in settling myself. I thought it best not to be precipitate in fixing on a place to board and lodge, but first to sound the public as to my success. Every one thinks I shall meet with encouragement, and, on the strength of this, I have taken lodgings and a room at Mrs. Hinge’s in Jaffrey Street; a very excellent and central situation…. I shall commence on Monday morning with Governor Langdon’s portrait. He is very kind and attentive to me, as, indeed, are all here, and will do everything to aid me. I wish not to raise high expectations, but I think I shall succeed tolerably well.”
About this time Finley Morse and his brother Edwards had jointly devised and patented a new “flexible piston-pump,” from which they hoped great things. Edwards, always more or less of a wag, proposed to call it “Morse’s Patent Metallic Double-headed Ocean-Drinker and Deluge-Spouter Valve Pump-Boxes.”
It was to be used in connection with fire-engines, and seems really to have been an excellent invention, for President Jeremiah Day, of Yale College, gave the young inventors his written endorsement, and Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, thus recommends it: “Having examined the model of a fire-engine invented by Mr. Morse, with pistons of a new construction, I am of opinion that an engine may be made on that principle (being more simple and much less expensive), which would have a preference to those in common use.”
In the letters of the year 1817 and of several following years, even in the letters of the young man to his _fiancee,_ many long references are made to this pump and to the varying success in introducing it into general use. I shall not, however, refer to it again, and only mention it to show the bent of Morse’s mind towards invention.
He spent some time in the early part of 1817 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, meeting with success in his profession. Miss Walker was also there visiting friends, so we may presume that his stay was pleasant as well as profitable.
In February of that year he accompanied his _fiancee_ to Charlestown, his parents, naturally, wishing to make the acquaintance of the young lady, and then returned to Portsmouth to finish his work there.
The visit of Miss Walker to Charlestown gave great satisfaction to all concerned. On March 4, 1817, Morse writes to his parents from Portsmouth: “I am under the agreeable necessity (shall I say) of postponing my return … in consequence of a _press of business_. I shall have three begun to-night; one sat yesterday (a large one), and two will sit to-day (small), and three more have it in serious contemplation. This unexpected occurrence will deprive me of the pleasure of seeing you this week at least.”
And on the next day, March 5, he writes: “The unexpected application of three sitters at a time completely stopped me. Since I wrote I have taken a first sitting of a fourth (large), and a fifth (large) sits on Friday morning; so you see I am over head and ears in business.”
As it is necessary to a clear understanding of Morse’s character to realize the depth of his religious convictions, I shall quote the following from this same letter of March 5:–
“I wish much to know the progress of the Revival, how many are admitted next communion, and any religious news.
“I have been in the house almost ever since I came from home sifting the scheme of Universal Salvation to the bottom. What occasioned this was an occurrence on the evening of Sunday before last. I heard the bell ring for lecture and concluded it was at Mr. Putnam’s; I accordingly sallied out to go to it, when I found that it was in the Universalist meeting-house.
“As I was out and never in a Universalist meeting, I thought, for mere curiosity, I would go in. I went into a very large meeting-house; the meeting was overflowing with people of both sexes, and the singing the finest I have heard in Portsmouth. I was struck with the contrast it made to Mr. Putnam’s sacramental lecture; fifteen or sixteen persons thinly scattered over the house, and the choir consisting of four or five whose united voice could scarcely be heard in the farthest corner of the church, and, when heard, so out of harmony as to set one’s teeth on edge.
“The reflections which this melancholy contrast caused I could not help communicating to Mr. Putnam in the words of Mr. Spring’s sermon, ‘_something must be done_.’ He agreed it was a dreadful state of society here but almost gave up as hopeless. I told him he never should yield a post like this to the Devil without a struggle; and, at any rate, I told him that the few Christians that there were (and, indeed, they are but as one to one thousand) could pray, and I thought it was high time. I told him I would do all in my power to assist him in any scheme where I could be of use.”
The year 1817 was spent by the young man in executing the commissions which had been promised him the year before in New Hampshire. In all his journeyings back and forth the road invariably led through Concord, and the pure love of the young people for each other increased as the months rolled by. I shall not profane the sacredness of this love by introducing any of the more intimate passages of their letters of this and of later years. The young girl responded readily to the religious exhortations of her _fiance_ and became a sincere and devout Christian.
It will not be necessary to follow him in this journey, as the experiences were but a repetition of those of the year before. He painted many portraits in Concord, Hanover, and other places, and finally concluded to venture on a trip to Charleston, South Carolina, where his kinsman, Dr. Finley, and Mr. John A. Alston had urged him to come, assuring him good business.
On January 27, 1818, he arrived in that beautiful Southern city and thus announced his arrival to his parents: “I find myself in a new climate, the weather warm as our May. I have been introduced to a number of friends. I think my prospects are favorable.”
At first, however, the promised success did not materialize, and it was not until after many weeks of waiting that the tide turned. But it did turn, for an excellent portrait of Dr. Finley, one of the best ever painted by Morse, aroused the enthusiasm of the Charlestonians, and orders began to pour in, so that in a few weeks he was engaged to paint one hundred and fifty portraits at sixty dollars each. Quite an advance over the meagre fifteen dollars he had received in New England. But for some of his more elaborate productions he received even more, as the following extract from a letter of Mr. John A. Alston, dated April 7, 1818, will prove:–
“I have just received your favor of the 30th ultimo, and thank you very cordially for your goodness in consenting to take my daughter’s full-length likeness in the manner I described, say twenty-four inches in length. I will pay you most willingly the two hundred dollars you require for it, and will consider myself a gainer by the bargain. I shall expect you to decorate this picture with the most superb landscape you are capable of designing, and that you will produce a masterpiece of painting. I agree to your taking it with you to the northward to finish it. Be pleased to represent my daughter in the finest attitude you can conceive.”
Mr. Alston was a generous patron and paid the young artist liberally for the portraits of his children. In recognition of this Morse presented him with his most ambitious painting, “The Judgment of Jupiter.” Mr. Alston prized this picture highly during his lifetime, but after his death it was sold and for many years was lost sight of. It was purchased long afterwards in England by an American gentleman, who, not knowing who the painter was, gave it to a niece of Morse’s, Mrs. Parmalee, and it is still, I believe, in the possession of the family.
While he was in Charleston his father wrote to him of the dangerous illness of his mother with what he called a “peripneumony,” which, from the description, must have been the term used in those days for pneumonia. Her life was spared, however, and she lived for many years after this.
In June of the year 1818, Morse returned to the North and spent the summer in completing such portraits as he had carried with him in an unfinished state, and in painting such others as he could procure commissions for. He planned to return to Charleston in the following year, but this time with a young wife to accompany him.
His uncle, Dr. Finley, writing to him on June 16, says:–
“Your letter of 2d instant, conveying the pleasing intelligence of your safe and very short passage and happy meeting with your affectionate parents at your own home, came safe to hand in due time…. And so Lucretia was expected and you intended to surprise her by your unlooked-for presence.
“Finley, I am afraid you will be too happy. You ought to meet a little rub or two or you will be too much in the clouds and forget that you are among mortals. Let me see if I cannot give you a friendly twist downwards.
“Your pictures–aye–suppose I should speak of them and what is said of them during your absence. I will perform the office of him who was placed near the triumphal car of the conqueror to abuse him lest he should be too elated.
“Well–‘His pictures,’ say people, ‘are undoubtedly good likenesses, but he paints carelessly and in too much haste and his draperies are not well done. He must be more attentive or he will lose his reputation.’ ‘See,’ say others, ‘how he flatters.’ ‘Oh!’ says another, ‘he has not flattered me’; etc., etc.
“By the bye, I saw old General C.C. Pinckney yesterday, and he told me, in his laughing, humorous way, that he had requested you to draw his brother Thomas twenty years younger than he really was, so as to be a companion to his own when he was twenty years younger than at this time, and to flatter him as he had directed Stuart to do so to him.”
Morse had now abandoned his idea of soon returning to Europe; he renounced, for the present, his ambition to devote himself to the painting of great historical pictures, and threw himself with enthusiasm into the painting of portraits. He had an added incentive, for he wished to marry at once, and his parents and those of his _fiancee_ agreed that it would be wise for the young people to make the venture. Everything seemed to presage success in life, at least in a modest way, to the young couple.
On the 6th of October, 1818, the following notice appeared in the New Hampshire “Patriot,” of Concord: “Married in this town, October 1st, by Rev. Dr. McFarland, Mr. Samuel F.B. Morse (the celebrated painter) to Miss Lucretia Walker, daughter of Charles Walker, Esq.”
On the 5th of October the young man writes to his parents:–
“I was married, as I wrote you I should be, on Tuesday morning last. We set out at nine o’clock and reached Amherst over bad roads at night. The next day we continued our journey through Wilton to New Ipswich, eighteen miles over one of the worst roads I ever travelled, all uphill and down and very rocky, and no tavern on the road. We enquired at New Ipswich our best route to Northampton, where we intended to go to meet Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius, but we found on enquiry that there were nothing but cross-roads and these very bad, and no taverns where we could be comfortably accommodated. Our horse also was tired, so we thought our best way was to return. Accordingly the next day we started for Concord, and arrived on Friday evening safe home again.
“Lucretia wishes to spend this week with her friends, so that I shall return (Providence permitting) on this day week, and reach home by Tuesday noon, probably to dinner. We are both well and send a great deal of love to you all. Mr. and Mrs. Walker wish me to present their best respects to you. We had delightful weather for travelling, and got home just in season to escape Saturday’s rain.”
CHAPTER XI
NOVEMBER 19, 1818–MARCH 31, 1821.
Morse and his wife go to Charleston, South Carolina.–Hospitably entertained and many portraits painted.–Congratulates Allston on his election to the Royal Academy.–Receives commission to paint President Monroe.–Trouble in the parish at Charlestown.–Morse urges his parents to leave and come to Charleston.–Letters of John A. Alston.–Return to the North.–Birth of his first child.–Dr. Morse and his family decide to move to New Haven.–Morse goes to Washington.–Paints the President under difficulties.–Hospitalities.–Death of his grandfather.–Dr. Morse appointed Indian Commissioner.–Marriage of Morse’s future mother-in-law. –Charleston again.–Continued success.–Letters to Mrs. Ball.– Liberality of Mr. Alston.–Spends the summer in New Haven.–Returns to Charleston, but meets with poor success.–Assists in founding Academy of Arts, which has but a short life.–Goes North again.
The young couple decided to spend the winter in Charleston, South Carolina, where Morse had won a reputation the previous winter as an excellent portrait-painter, and where much good business awaited him.
The following letter was written to his parents:–
SCHOONER TONTINE, AT ANCHOR OFF CHARLESTON LIGHTHOUSE, THURSDAY, November 19, 1818, 5 o’clock P.M.
We have arrived thus far on our voyage safely through the kind protection of Providence. We have had a very rough passage attended with many dangers and more fears, but have graciously been delivered from them all. It is seven days since we left New York. If you recollect that was the time of my last passage in this same vessel. She is an excellent vessel and has the best captain and accommodations in the trade.
Lucretia was a little seasick in the roughest times, but, on the whole, bore the voyage extremely well. She seems a little downcast this afternoon in consequence of feeling as if she was going among strangers, but I tell her she will overcome it in ten minutes’ interview with Uncle and Aunt Finley and family.
She is otherwise very well and sends a great deal of love to you all. Please let Mr. and Mrs. Walker know of our arrival as soon as may be. I will leave the remainder of this until I get up to town. We hope to go up when the tide changes in about an hour.
FRIDAY MORNING, 20th, AT UNCLE FINLEY’S.
We are safely housed under the hospitable roof of Uncle Finley, where they received us, as you might expect, with open arms. He has provided lodgings for us at ten dollars per week. I have not yet seen them; shall go directly.
I received a letter from Richard at Savannah; he writes in fine spirits and feels quite delighted with the hospitable people of the South.
This refers to his brother Richard Carey Morse, who was still pursuing his theological studies.
The visit of the young couple to Charleston was a most enjoyable one, and the artist found many patrons eager to be immortalized by his brush.
On December 22, 1818, he writes to his parents:–
“Lucretia is well and contented. She makes many friends and we receive as much attention from the hospitable Carolinians as we can possibly attend to. She is esteemed quite handsome here; she has grown quite fleshy and healthy, and we are as happy in each other as you can possibly wish us.
“There are several painters arrived from New York, but I fear no competition; I have as much as I can do.”
As a chronicle of fair weather, favorable winds, and blue skies is apt to grow monotonous, I shall pass rapidly over the next few years, only selecting from the voluminous correspondence of that period a few extracts which have more than a passing interest.
On February 4, 1819, he writes to his friend and master, Washington Allston, who had now returned to Boston:–
“Excuse my neglect in not having written you before this according to my promise before I left Boston. I can only plead as apology (what I know will gratify you) a multiplicity of business. I am painting from morning till night and have continual applications. I have added to my list, this season only, to the amount of three thousand dollars; that is since I left you. Among them are three full lengths to be finished at the North, I hope in Boston, where I shall once more enjoy your criticisms.
“I am exerting my utmost to improve; every picture I try to make my best, and in the evening I draw two hours from the antique as I did in London; for I ought to inform you that I fortunately found a fine ‘Venus de Medicis’ without a blemish, imported from Paris sometime since by a gentleman of this city who wished to dispose of it; also a young Apollo which was so broken that he gave it to me, saying it was useless. I have, however, after a great deal of trouble, put it together entirely, and these two figures, with some fragments,–hands, feet, etc.,–make a good academy. Mr. Fraser, Mr. Cogdell, Mr. Fisher, of Boston, and myself meet here of an evening to improve ourselves. I feel as much enthusiasm as ever in my art and love it more than ever. A few years, at the rate I am now going on, will place me independent of public patronage.
“Thus much for myself, for you told me in one of your letters from London that I must be more of an egotist or you should be less of one in your letters to me, which I should greatly regret.
“And now, permit me, my dear sir, to congratulate you on your election to the Royal Academy. I know you will believe me when I say I jumped for joy when I heard it. Though it cannot add to your merit, yet it will extend the knowledge of it, especially in our own country, where we are still influenced by foreign opinion, and more justly, perhaps, in regard to taste in the fine arts than in any other thing.”
On March 1, 1819, the Common Council of Charleston passed the following resolution:–
“Resolved unanimously that His Honor the Intendant be requested to solicit James Monroe, President of the United States, to permit a full-length likeness to be taken for the City of Charleston, and that Mr. Morse be requested to take all necessary measures for executing the said likeness on the visit of the President to this city.
“Resolved unanimously that the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars be appropriated for this purpose.
“Extract from the minutes.
“WILLIAM ROACH, JR.,
“Clerk of Council.”
This portrait of President Monroe was completed later on and still hangs in the City Hall of Charleston. I shall have occasion to refer to it again.
Morse, in a letter to his parents of March 26, 1819, says:–
“Two of your letters have been lately received detailing the state of the parish and church. I cannot say I was surprised, for it is what might be expected from Charlestown people…. As to returning home in the way I mentioned mama need not be at all uneasy on that score. It is necessary I should visit Washington, as the President will stay so short a time here that I cannot complete the head unless I see him in Washington…. Now as to the parish and church business, I hope all things will turn out right yet, and I can’t help wishing that nothing may occur to keep you any longer in that nest of vipers and conspirators. I think with Edwards decidedly that, on mama’s account alone, you should leave a place which is full of the most unpleasant associations to all the family, and retire to some place of quiet to enjoy your old age.
“Why not come to Charleston? Here is a fine place for usefulness, a pleasant climate especially for persons advanced in life, and your children here; for I think seriously of settling in Charleston. Lucretia is willing, and I think it will be much for my advantage to remain through the year. Richard can find a place here if he will, and Edwards can come on and be _Bishop_ or _President_ or _Professor_ in some of the colleges (for I can’t think of him in a less character) after he has graduated.
“I wish seriously you would think of this. Your friends here would greatly rejoice and an opening could be found, I have no doubt. Christians want their hands strengthened, and a veteran soldier, like papa, might be of great service here in the infancy of the _Unitarian Hydra_, who finds a population too well adapted to receive and cherish its easy and fascinating tenets.”
All this refers to a movement organized by the enemies of Dr. Morse to oust him from his parish in Charlestown. He was a militant fighter for orthodoxy and an uncompromising foe to Unitarianism, which was gradually obtaining the ascendancy in and near Boston. The movement was finally successful, as we shall see later, but they did not go as far from their old haunts as Charleston.
I shall not attempt to argue the rights and wrongs of the case, which seem to have been rather complicated, for Dr. Morse, more than a year after this, in writing to a friend says: “The events of the last fifteen months are still involved in impenetrable mystery, which I doubt not will be unravelled in due time.”
The winter and spring of 1819 were spent by the young couple both pleasantly and profitably in Charleston. The best society of that charming city opened its arms to them and orders flowed in in a steady stream. Mr. John A. Alston was a most generous patron, ordering many portraits of his children and friends, and sometimes insisting on paying the young man even more than the price agreed upon.
In a letter to Morse he says: “Which of my friends was it who lately observed to you that I had a picture mania? You made, I understand, a most excellent reply, ‘You wished I would come to town, then, and bite a dozen.’ Indeed, my very good sir, was it in my power to excite in them a just admiration of your talents, I would readily come to town and bite the whole community.”
And in another letter of April 10, 1819, Mr. Alston says: “Your portrait of my daughter was left in Georgetown [South Carolina], at the house of a friend; nearly all of the citizens have seen it, and I really think it will occasion you some applications…. Every one thought himself at liberty to make remarks. Some declared it to be a good likeness, while others insisted it was not so, and several who made such remarks, I _knew_ had _never_ seen my daughter. At last a rich Jew gentleman observed, ‘it was the _richest_ piece of painting he had ever seen.’ This being so much in character that I assure you, sir, I could contain myself no longer, which, spreading among the audience, occasioned not an unpleasant moment.”
Morse and his young wife returned to the North in the early summer of 1819, and spent the summer and fall with his parents in Charlestown. The young man occupied himself with the completion of the portraits which he had brought with him from the South, and his wife was busied with preparations for the event which is thus recorded in a letter of Dr. Morse’s to his son Sidney Edwards at Andover: “Since I have been writing the above, Lucretia has presented us with a fine granddaughter and is doing well. The event has filled us with joy and gratitude.”
The child was christened Susan Walker Morse. In the mean time the distressing news had come from Charleston of the sudden death of Dr. Finley, to whose kindly affection and influence Morse owed much of the pleasure and success of his several visits to Charleston.
Affairs had come to a crisis in the parish at Charlestown, and Dr. Morse decided to resign and planned to move to New Haven, Connecticut, with his family in the following spring.
The necessity for pursuing his profession in the most profitable field compelled Morse to return to Charleston by way of Washington in November, and this time he had to go alone, much against his inclinations.
He writes to his mother from New York on November 28, 1819: “I miss Lucretia and little Susan more than you can think, and I shall long to have us all together at New Haven in the spring.”
His object in going to Washington was to paint the portrait of the President, and of this he says in a letter: “I began on Monday to paint the President and have almost completed the head. I am thus far pleased with it, but I find it very perplexing, for he cannot sit more than ten or twenty minutes at a time, so that the moment I feel engaged he is called away again. I set my palette to-day at ten o’clock and waited until four o’clock this afternoon before he came in. He then sat ten minutes and we were called to dinner. Is not this trying to one’s patience?”
“_December 17, 1819._ I have been here nearly a fortnight. I commenced the President’s portrait on Monday and shall finish it to-morrow. I have succeeded to my satisfaction, and, what is better, to the satisfaction of himself and family; so much so that one of his daughters wishes me to copy the head for her. They all say that mine is the best that has been taken of him. The daughter told me (she said as a secret) that her father was delighted with it, and said it was the only one that in his opinion looked like him; and this, too, with Stuart’s in the room.
“The President has been very kind and hospitable to me; I have dined with him three times and taken tea as often; he and his family have been very sociable and unreserved. I have painted him at his house, next room to his cabinet, so that when he had a moment to spare he would come in to me.
“Wednesday evening Mrs. Monroe held a drawing-room. I attended and made my bow. She was splendidly and tastily dressed. The drawing-room and suite of rooms at the President’s are furnished and decorated in the most splendid manner; some think too much so, but I do not. Something of splendor is certainly proper about the Chief Magistrate for the credit of the nation. Plainness can be carried to an extreme, and in national buildings and establishments it will, with good reason, be styled meanness.”
“_December 23, 1819._ It is obviously for my interest to hasten to Charleston, as I shall there be immediately at work, and this is the more necessary as there is a fresh gang of adventurers in the brush line gone to Charleston before me.”
A short while after this he received the news of the death of his grandfather, Jedediah Morse, at Woodstock, Connecticut, on December 29, aged ninety-four years. Mr. Prime says of him: “He was a strong man in body and mind, an able and upright magistrate, for eighteen years one of the selectmen of the town, twenty-seven years town clerk and treasurer, fifteen years a member of the Colonial and State Legislature, and a prominent, honored, and useful member and officer of the church.”
In January of the year 1820, Dr. Morse, realizing that it would be for the best interests of all concerned to relinquish his pastorate at Charlestown, turned his active brain in another direction, and resolved to carry out a plan which he had long contemplated. This was to secure from the Government at Washington an appointment as commissioner to the Indians on the borders of the United States of those early days, in order to enquire into their condition with a view to their moral and physical betterment. To this end he journeyed to Washington and laid his project before the President and the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun. He was most courteously entertained by these gentlemen and received the appointment.
In the following spring with his son Richard he travelled through the northwestern frontiers of the United States, and gained much valuable information which he laid before the Government. As he was a man of delicate constitution, we cannot but admire his indomitable spirit in ever devising new projects of usefulness to his fellow men. It was impossible for him to remain idle.
But it is not within the scope of this work to follow him on his journeys, although his letters of that period make interesting reading. While he was in Washington his wife, writing to him on January 27, 1820, says: “Mrs. Salisbury and Abby drank tea with us day before yesterday. They told us that Catherine Breese was married to a lieutenant in the army. This must have been a very sudden thing, and I should suppose very grievous to Arthur.”
Little did the good lady think as she penned these words that, many years afterwards, her beloved eldest son would take as his second wife a daughter of this union. Why this marriage should have been “grievous” to the father, Arthur Breese, I do not know, unless all army officers were classed among the ungodly by the very pious of those days. As a matter of fact, Lieutenant, afterwards Captain, Griswold was a most gallant gentleman.
In the mean time Finley Morse had reached Charleston in safety after a tedious journey of many days by stage from Washington, and was busily employed in painting. On February 4, 1820, he writes to his mother:–
“I received your good letter of the 19th and 22d ult., and thank you for it. I wish I had time to give you a narrative of my journey as you wish, but you know ‘_time is money_,’ and we must ‘_make hay while the sun shines_,’ and ‘_a penny saved is a penny got_,” and ‘_least said soonest mended_,’ and a good many other wise sayings which would be quite pat, but I can’t think of them.
“The fact is I have scarcely time to say or write a word. I am busily employed in getting the cash, or else Ned’s almanac for March will foretell falsely.
“I am doing well, although the city fairly swarms with painters. I am the only one that has as much as he can do; all the rest are complaining. I wish I could divide with some of them, very clever men who have families to support, and can get nothing to do…. I feel rejoiced that things have come to such a crisis in Charlestown that our family will be released from that region of trouble so soon.
“Keep up your spirits, mother, the Lord will show you good days according to those in which you have seen evil….
“I am glad Lucretia and the dear little Susan intend meeting me at New Haven. I think this by far the best plan; it will save me a great deal of time, which, as I said before, is money.
“I shall have to spend some time in New Haven getting settled, and I wish to commence painting as soon as possible, for I have more than a summer’s work before me in the President’s portrait and Mrs. Ball’s.
“As soon as the cash comes in, mother, it shall all be remitted except what I immediately want. You may depend upon it that nothing shall be left undone on my part to help you and the rest of us from that hole of vipers.
“I think it very probable I shall return by the middle of May; it will depend much on circumstances, however. I wish very much to be with my dear wife and daughter. I must contrive to bring them with me next season to Charleston, though it may be more expensive, yet I do not think that should be a consideration. I think that a man should be separated from his family but very seldom, and then under cases of absolute necessity, as I consider the case to be at present with me: that is, I think they should not be separated for any length of time. If I know my own disposition I am of a domestic habit, formed to this habit, probably, by the circumstances that have been so peculiar to our family in Charlestown. I by no means regret having such a habit if it can be properly regulated; I think it may be carried to excess, and shut us from the opportunities of doing good by mixing with our fellow men.”
This pronouncement was very characteristic of the man. He was always, all through his long life, happiest when at home surrounded by all his family, and yet he never shirked the duty of absenting himself from home, even for a prolonged period, when by so doing he could accomplish some great or good work.
That a portrait-painter’s lot is not always a happy one may be illustrated by the following extracts from letters of Morse to the Mrs. Ball whom he mentions in the foregoing letter to his mother, and who seems to have been a most capricious person, insisting on continual alterations, and one day pleased and the next almost insulting in her censure:–
MADAM,–Supposing that I was dealing not only with a woman of honor, but, from her professions, with a Christian, I ventured in my note of the 18th inst., to make an appeal to your conscience in support of the justness of my demand of the four hundred dollars still due from you for your portrait. By your last note I find you are disposed to take an advantage of that circumstance of which I did not suppose you capable. My sense of the justness of my demand was so strong, as will appear from the whole tenor of that note, that I venture this appeal, not imagining that any person of honor, of the least spark of generous feeling, and more especially of Christian principle, could understand anything more than the enforcing my claim by an appeal to that principle which I knew should be the strongest in a real Christian.
Whilst, however, you have chosen to put a different construction on this part of the note, and supposed that I left you to say whether you would pay me anything or nothing, you have (doubtless unconsciously) shown that your conscience has decided in favor of the whole amount which is my due, and which I can never voluntarily relinquish.
You affirm in the first part of your note that, after due consideration, you think the real value of the picture is four hundred dollars (without the frame), yet, had your crop been good, your conscience would have adjudged me the remaining four hundred dollars without hesitation; and again (if your crop should be good) you could pay me the four hundred dollars next season.
Must I understand from this, madam, that the goodness or badness of your crop is the scale on which your conscience measures your obligation to pay a just debt, and that it contracts or expands as your crop increases or diminishes? Pardon me, madam, if I say that this appears to be the case from your letter.
My wish throughout this whole business has been to accommodate the time and terms of payment as much to your convenience as I could consistently with my duty to my family and myself. As a proof of this you need only advert to my note of yesterday, in which I inform you that I am paying interest on money borrowed for the use of my family which your debt, if it had been promptly paid, would have prevented.
And in another letter he says:–
“I completed your picture in the summer with two others which have given, as far as I can learn, entire satisfaction. Yours was painted with the same attention and with the same ability as the others, and admired as a picture, after it was finished, as much by some as the others, and more by many.
“Among these latter were the celebrated Colonel Trumbull and Vanderlyn, painters of New York…. You cannot but recollect, madam, that when you yourself with your children visited it, not withstanding you expressed yourself before them in terms so strong against it and so wounding to my feelings, yet all your children dissented from you, the youngest saying it was ‘mama,’ and the eldest, ‘I am sure, mother, it is very like you.’…
“Your picture, from the day I commenced it, has been the source of one of my greatest trials, and, if it has taught me in any degree patience and forbearance, I shall have abundant reason to be thankful for the affliction.”
In the end he consented to take less than had been agreed upon in order to close the incident.
As a happy contrast to this episode we have the following quotation from a letter to his wife written on February 17, 1820:–
“Did I tell you in my last that Colonel Alston insisted on giving me _two hundred dollars_ more than I asked for the picture of little Sally, and a commission to paint her again full length next season, smaller than the last and larger than the first portrait, for which I shall receive four hundred dollars? He intimates also that I am to paint a picture annually for him. Is not he a strange man? (as people say here). I wish some more of the great fortunes in this part of the country would be as strange and encourage other artists who are men of genius and starving for want of employment.”
Morse returned to the North in the spring of 1820 and joined his mother and his wife and daughter in New Haven, where they had preceded him and where they were comfortably and agreeably settled, as will appear from the following sentence in a letter to his good friend and mentor, Henry Bromfield, of London, dated August, 1820: “You will perceive by the heading of this letter that I am in New Haven. My father and his family have left Charlestown, Massachusetts, and are settled in this place. My own family also, consisting of wife and daughter, are pleasantly settled in this delightful spot. I have built me a fine painting-room attached to my house in which I paint my large pictures in the summer, and in the winter I migrate to Charleston, South Carolina, where I have commissions sufficient to employ me for some years to come.”
He returned to Charleston in the fall of 1820 and was again compelled to go alone. He writes to his wife on December 27: “I feel the separation this time more than ever, and I felt the other day, when I saw the steamship start for New York, that I had almost a mind to return in her.”
From this sentence we learn that the slow schooner of the preceding years had been supplanted by the more rapid steamship, but that is, unfortunately, all he has to say of this great step forward in human progress.
Further on in this same letter he says: “I am occupied fully so that I have no reason to complain. I have not a _press_ like the first season or like the last, but still I can say I am all the time employed…. My President pleases very much; I have heard no dissatisfaction expressed. It is placed in the great Hall in a fine light and place…. Mrs. Ball wants some alterations, that is to say every five minutes she would like it to be different. She is the most unreasonable of all mortals; derangement is her only apology. I can’t tell you all in a letter, must wait till I see you. I shall get the rest of the cash from her shortly.”
Just at this time the wave of prosperity on which the young man had so long floated, began to subside, for he writes to his wife on January 28, 1821:–
“I wish I could write encouragingly as to my professional pursuits, but I cannot. Notwithstanding the diminished price and the increase of exertion to please, and although I am conscious of painting much better portraits than formerly (which, indeed, stands to reason if I make continual exertion to improve), yet with all I receive no new commissions, cold and procrastinating answers from those to whom I write and who had put their names on my list. I give less satisfaction to those whom I have painted; I receive less attention also from some of those who formerly paid me much attention, and none at all from most.”
But with his usual hopefulness he says later on in this letter:–
“Why should I expect my sky to be perpetually unclouded, my sun to be never obscured? I have thus far enjoyed more of the sunshine of prosperity than most of my fellow men. ‘Shall I receive good at the hands of the Lord and shall I not also receive evil?'”
In this letter, a very long one, he suggests the establishment of an academy or school of painting in New Haven, so that he may be enabled to live at home with his family, and find time to paint some of the great historical works which he still longed to do. He also tells of the formation of such an academy in Charleston:–
“Since writing this there has been formed here an Academy of Arts to be erected immediately. J.R. Poinsett, Esq., is President, and six others with myself are chosen Directors. What this is going to lead to I don’t know. I heard Mr. Cogdell say that it was intended to have lectures read, among other things. I feel not very sanguine as to its success, still I shall do all in my power to help it on as long as I am here.”
His forebodings seem to have been justified, for Mr. John S. Cogdell, a sculptor, thus writes of it in later years to Mr. Dunlap:–
“The Legislature granted a charter, but, my good sir, as they possessed no powers under the constitution to confer taste or talent, and possessed none of those feelings which prompt to patronage, they gave none to the infant academy…. The institution was allowed from apathy and opposition to die; but Mr. Poinsett and myself with a few others have purchased, with a hope of reviving, the establishment.”
Referring to this academy the wife in New Haven, in a letter of February 25, 1821, says: “Mr. Silliman says he is not much pleased to hear that they have an academy for painting in Charleston. He is afraid they will decoy you there.”
On March 11, 1821, Morse answers thus: “Tell Mr. Silliman I have stronger _magnets_ at New Haven than any academy can have, and, while that is the case, I cannot be decoyed permanently from home.”
I wonder if he used the word “magnets” advisedly, for it was with Professor Silliman that he at that time pursued the studies in physics, including electricity, which had so interested him while in college, and it was largely due to the familiarity with the subject which he then acquired that he was, in later years, enabled successfully to perfect his invention.
On the 12th of March, 1821, another daughter was born to the young couple, and was named Elizabeth Ann after her paternal grandmother. The child lived but a few days, however, much to the grief of her parents and grandparents.
Charleston had now given all she had to give to the young painter, and he packed his belongings to return home with feelings both of joy and of regret. He was overjoyed at the prospect of so soon seeing his dearly loved wife and daughter, and his parents and brothers; at the same time he had met with great hospitality in Charleston; had made many firm friends; had impressed himself strongly on the life of the city, as he always did wherever he went, and had met with most gratifying success in his profession. A partial list of the portraits painted while he was there gives the names of fifty-five persons, and, as the prices received are appended, we learn that he received over four thousand dollars from his patrons for these portraits alone.
On March 31, 1821, he joyfully announces his homecoming: “I just drop you a hasty line to say that, in all probability, your husband will be with you as soon, if not sooner than this letter. I am entirely clear of all sitters, having outstayed my last application; have been engaged in finishing off and packing up for two days past and contemplate embarking by the middle or end of the coming week in the steamship for New York. You must not be surprised, therefore, to see me soon after this reaches you; still don’t be disappointed if I am a little longer, as the winds most prevalent at this season are head winds in going to the North. I am busy in collecting my dues and paying my debts.”
CHAPTER XII
MAY 23, 1821–DECEMBER 17, 1824
Accompanies Mr. Silliman to the Berkshires.–Takes his wife and daughter to Concord, New Hampshire.–Writes to his wife from Boston about a bonnet.–Goes to Washington, D.C.–Paints large picture of House of Representatives.–Artistic but not financial success.–Donates five hundred dollars to Yale.–Letter from Mr. DeForest.–New York “Observer.”–Discouragements.–First son born.–Invents marble-carving machine.–Goes to Albany.–Stephen Van Rensselaer.–Slight encouragement in Albany.–Longing for a home.–Goes to New York.–Portrait of Chancellor Kent.–Appointed attache to Legation to Mexico.–High hopes.– Takes affecting leave of his family.–Rough journey to Washington.– Expedition to Mexico indefinitely postponed.–Returns North.–Settles in New York.–Fairly prosperous.
Much as Morse longed for a permanent home, where he could find continuous employment while surrounded by those he loved, it was not until many years afterwards and under totally different circumstances that his dream was realized. For the present the necessity of earning money for the support of his young family and for the assistance of his ageing father and mother drove him continually forth to new fields, and on May 23, 1821, which must have been only a few weeks after his return from the South, he writes to his wife from Pittsfield, Massachusetts:–
“We are thus far on our tour safe and sound. Mr. Silliman’s health is very perceptibly better already. Last night we lodged at Litchfield; Mr. Silliman had an excellent night and is in fine spirits.
“At Litchfield I called on Judge Reeves and sat a little while…. I called at Mr. Beecher’s with Mr. Silliman and Judge Gould; no one at home. Called with Mr. Silliman at Dr. Shelden’s, and stayed a few moments; sat a few moments also at Judge Gould’s.
“I was much pleased with the exterior appearance of Litchfield; saw at a distance Edwards’s pickerel pond.
“We left at five this morning, breakfasted at Norfolk, dined at Stockbridge. We there left the stage and have hired a wagon to go on to Middlebury, Vermont, at our leisure. We lodge here to-night and shall probably reach Bennington, Vermont, to-morrow night.
“I have made one slight pencil sketch of the Hoosac Mountain. At Stockbridge we visited the marble quarries, and to-morrow at Lanesborough shall visit the quarries of fine white marble there.
“I am much delighted with my excursion thus far. To travel with such a companion as Mr. Silliman I consider as highly advantageous as well as gratifying.”
This is all the record I have of this particular trip. The Mr. Beecher referred to was the father of Henry Ward Beecher.
Later in the summer he accompanied his wife and little daughter to Concord, New Hampshire, and left them there with her father and mother. Writing to her from Boston on his way back to New Haven, he says in characteristically masculine fashion:–
“I have talked with Aunt Bartlett about getting you a bonnet. She says that it is no time to get a fashionable winter bonnet in Boston now, and that it would be much better if you could get it in New York, as the Bostonians get their fashions from New York and, of course, much later than we should in New Haven. She thinks that white is better than blue, etc., etc., etc., which she can explain to you much better than I can. She is willing, however, to get you any you wish if you still request it. She thinks, if you cannot wait for the new fashion, that your black bonnet put into proper shape with black plumes would be as _tasty_ and fashionable as any you could procure. I think so, too. You had better write Aunt particularly about it.”
While Morse had conscientiously tried to put the best of himself into the painting of portraits, and had succeeded better than he himself knew, he still longed for wider fields, and in November, 1821, he went to Washington, D.C., to begin a work which he for some time had had in contemplation, and which he now felt justified in undertaking. This was to be a large painting of the House of Representatives with many portraits of the members. The idea was well received at Washington and he obtained the use of one of the rooms at the Capitol for a studio, making it easy for the members to sit for him. It could not have been all plain sailing, however, for his wife says to him in a letter of December 28, 1821: “Knowing that perseverance is a trait in your character, we do not any of us feel surprised to hear you have overcome so many obstacles. You have undertaken a great work…. Every one thinks it must be a very popular subject and that you will make a splendid picture of it.”
Writing to his wife he says:–
“I am up at daylight, have my breakfast and prayers over and commence the labors of the day long before the workmen are called to work on the Capitol by the bell. This I continue unremittingly till one o’clock, when I dine in about fifteen minutes and then pursue my labors until tea, which scarcely interrupts me, as I often have my cup of tea in one hand and my pencil in the other. Between ten and eleven o’clock I retire to rest. This has been my course every day (Sundays, of course, excepted) since I have been here, making about fourteen hours’ study out of the twenty-four.
“This you will say is too hard, and that I shall injure my health. I can say that I never enjoyed better health, and my body, by the simple fare I live on, is disciplined to this course. As it will not be necessary to continue long so assiduously I shall not fail to pursue it till the work is done.
“I receive every possible facility from all about the Capitol. The doorkeeper, a venerable man, has offered to light the great chandelier expressly for me to take my sketches in the evening for two hours together, for I shall have it a candlelight effect, when the room, already very splendid, will appear ten times more so.”
On the 2d of January, 1822, he writes: “I have commenced to-day taking the likenesses of the members. I find them not only willing to sit, but apparently esteeming it an honor. I shall take seventy of them and perhaps more; all if possible. I find the picture is becoming the subject of conversation, and every day gives me greater encouragement. I shall paint it on part of the great canvas when I return home. It will be eleven feet by seven and a half feet…. It will take me until October next to complete it.”
The room which he painted was then the Hall of Representatives, but is now Statuary Hall. As a work of art the painting is excellent and is highly esteemed by artists of the present day. It contains eighty portraits.
His high expectations of gaining much profit from its exhibition and of selling it for a large sum were, however, doomed to disappointment. It did not attract the public attention which he had anticipated and it proved a financial loss to him. It was finally sold to an Englishman, who took it across the ocean, and it was lost sight of until, after twenty-five years, it was found by an artist friend, Mr. F.W. Edmonds, in New York, where it had been sent from London. It was in a more or less damaged condition, but was restored by Morse. It eventually became the property of the late Daniel Huntington, who loaned it to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, where it now hangs.[1]
[Footnote 1: This painting has recently been purchased by the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery.]
I find no more letters of special interest of the year 1822, but Mr. Prime has this to record: “In the winter of 1822, notwithstanding the great expenses to which Mr. Morse had been subjected in producing this picture, and before he had realized anything from its exhibition, he made a donation of five hundred dollars to the library fund of Yale College; probably the largest donation in proportion to the means of the giver which that institution ever received.”
The corporation, by vote, presented the thanks of the board in the following letter:–
YALE COLLEGE,
December 4th, 1822.
DEAR SIR,–I am directed by the corporation of this college to present to you the thanks of the board for your subscription of five hundred dollars for the enlargement of the library. Should this example of liberality be generally imitated by the friends of the institution, we should soon have a library creditable to the college and invaluable to men of literary and philosophic research.
With respectful and grateful acknowledgment,
Your obedient servant,
JEREMAIAH DAY.
While he was at home in New Haven in the early part of 1823 he sought orders for portraits, and that he was successful in at least one instance is evidenced by the following letter:–
Mr. D.C. DeForest’s compliments to Mr. Morse. Mr. DeForest desires to have his portrait taken such as it would have been six or eight years ago, making the necessary calculation for it, and at the same time making it a good likeness in all other respects.
This reason is not to make himself younger, but to appear to children and grandchildren more suitably matched as to age with their mother and grandmother.
If Mr. Morse is at leisure and disposed to undertake this work, he will please prepare his canvas and let me know when he is ready for my attendance.
NEW HAVEN,
30th March, 1823.
Whether Morse succeeded to the satisfaction of Mr. DeForest does not appear from the correspondence, but both this portrait and that of Mrs. DeForest now hang in the galleries of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, and are here reproduced so that the reader may judge for himself.
[Illustration: MR. D.C. DE FOREST MRS. D.C. DE FOREST From “Thistle Prints.” Copyright Detroit Publishing Co. From a painting by Morse now in the Gallery of the Yale School of the Fine Arts]
On the 17th of May, 1828, the first number of the New York “Observer” was published. While being a religious newspaper the prospectus says it “contains also miscellaneous articles and summaries of news and information on every subject in which the community is interested.”
This paper was founded and edited by the two brothers Sidney E. and Richard C. Morse, who had abandoned respectively the law and the ministry. It was very successful, and became at one time a power in the community and is still in existence.
The editorial offices were first established at 50 Wall Street, but later the brothers bought a lot and erected a building at the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, and that edifice had an important connection with the invention of the telegraph. On the same site now stands the Morse Building, a pioneer sky-scraper now sadly dwarfed by its gigantic neighbors.
The year 1823 was one of mingled discouragement and hope. Compelled to absent himself from home for long periods in search of work, always hoping that in some place he would find enough to do to warrant his bringing his family and making for them a permanent home, his letters reflect his varying moods, but always with the underlying conviction that Providence will yet order all things for the best. The letters of the young wife are pathetic in their expressions of loneliness during the absence of her husband, and yet of forced cheerfulness and submission to the will of God.
On the 17th of March, 1823, another child was born, a son, who was named for his maternal grandfather, Charles Walker. The child was at first very delicate, and this added to the anxieties of the fond mother and father, but he soon outgrew his childish ailments.
Morse’s active mind was ever bent on invention, and in this year he devised and sought to patent a machine for carving marble statues, “perfect copies of any model.” He had great hopes of pecuniary profit from this invention and it is mentioned many times in the letters of this and the following year, but he found, on enquiry, that it was not patentable, as it would have been an infringement on the machine of Thomas Blanchard which was patented in 1820.
So once more were his hopes of independence blasted, as they had been in the case of the pump and fire-engine. He longed, like all artists, to be free from the petty cares and humiliations of the struggle for existence, free to give full rein to his lofty aspirations, secure in the confidence that those he loved were well provided for; but, like most other geniuses, he was compelled to drink still deeper of the bitter cup, to drain it to the very dregs.
In the month of August, 1823, he went to Albany, hoping through his acquaintance with the Patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, to establish himself there. He painted the portrait of the Patroon, confident that, by its exhibition, he would secure other orders. In a letter to his wife he says:–
“I have found lodgings–a large front room on the second story, twenty-five by eighteen feet, and twelve feet high–a fine room for painting, with a neat little bedroom, and every convenience, and board, all for six dollars a week, which I think is very reasonable. My landlord is an elderly Irish gentleman with three daughters, once in independent circumstances but now reduced. Everything bears the appearance of old-fashioned gentility which you know I always liked. Everything is neat and clean and genteel…. Bishop Hobart and a great many acquaintances were on board of the boat upon which I came up to this city.
“I can form no idea as yet of the prospect of success in my profession here. If I get enough to employ me I shall go no farther; if not, I may visit some of the smaller towns in the interior of the State. I await with some anxiety the result of experiments with my machine. I hope the invention may enable me to remain at home.”
“_16th of August._ I have not as yet received any application for a portrait. Many tell me I have come at the wrong time–the same tune that has been rung in my ears so long. I hope the right tune will come by and by. The winter, it is said, is the proper season, but, as it is better in the South at that season and it will be more profitable to be there, I shall give Albany a thorough trial and do my best. If I should not find enough to employ me here, I think I shall return to New York and settle there. This I had rather not do at present, but it may be the best that I can do. Roaming becomes more and more irksome. Imperious necessity alone drives me to this course. Don’t think by this I am faint-hearted; I shall persevere in this course, painful as is the separation from my family, until Providence clearly points out my duty to return.”
“_August 22._ I have something to do. I have one portrait in progress and the promise of more. One hundred dollars will pay all my expenses here for three months, so that the two I am now painting will clear me in that respect and all that comes after will be clear gain. I am, therefore, easier in my mind as to this. The portrait I am now painting is Judge Moss Kent, brother of the Chancellor. He says that I shall paint the Chancellor when he returns to Albany, and his niece also, and from these particulars you may infer that I shall be here for some little time longer, just so long as my good prospects continue; but, should they fail, I am determined to try New York City, and sit down there in my profession permanently. I believe I have now attained sufficient proficiency to venture there. My progress may be slow at first, but I believe it will be sure. I do not like going South and I have given up the idea of New Orleans or any Southern city, at least for the present. Circumstances may vary this determination, but I think a settlement in New York is more feasible now than ever before. I shall be near you and home in cases of emergency, and in the summer and sickly season can visit you at New Haven, while you can do the same to me in New York until we live again at New Haven altogether. I leave out of this calculation the _machine for sculpture_. If that should entirely succeed, my plans would be materially varied, but I speak of my present plan as if that had failed.”
“_August 24._ I finished Mr. Kent’s picture yesterday and received the money for it…. Mr. Kent is very polite to me, and has introduced me to a number of persons and families, among others to the Kanes–very wealthy people–to Governor Yates, etc. Mr. Clinton’s son called on me and invited me to their house…. I have been introduced to Senor Rocafuerto, the Spaniard who made so excellent a speech before the Bible Society last May. He is a very handsome man, very intelligent, full of wit and vivacity. He is a great favorite with the ladies and is a man of wealth and a zealous patriot, studying our manners, customs, and improvements, with a view of benefiting his own countrymen in Peru…. I long to be with you again and to see you all at _home_. I fear I dote on _home_ too much, but mine is such an uncommon home, such a delightful home, that I cannot but feel strongly my privation of its pleasures.”
“_August 27._ My last two letters have held out to you some encouraging prospects of success here, but now they seem darkened again. I have had nothing to do this week thus far but to wait patiently. I have advertised in both of the city papers that I should remain one week to receive applications, but as yet it has produced no effect….
“Chancellor Kent is out of town and I was told yesterday would not be in until the end of next month. If I should have nothing to do in the mean time it is hardly worth while to stay solely for that. Many have been talking of having their portraits painted, but there it has thus far ended. I feel a little perplexed to know what to do. I find nothing in Albany which can profitably employ my leisure hours. If there were any pictures or statuary where I could sketch and draw, it would be different…. I have visited several families who have been very kind to me, for which I am thankful….
“I shall leave Albany and return to New York a week from to-day if there is no change in my prospects…. The more I think of making a push at New York as a permanent place of residence in my profession, the more proper it seems that it should be pretty soon. There is now no rival that I should fear; a few more years may produce one that would be hard to overcome. New York does not yet feel the influx of wealth from the Western canal but in a year or two she will feel it, and it will be advantageous to me to be previously identified among her citizens as a painter.
“It requires some little time to become known in such a city as New York. Colonel T—- is growing old, too, and there is no artist of education sufficiently prominent to take his place as President of the Academy of Arts. By becoming more known to the New York public, and exerting my talents to discover the best methods of promoting the arts and writing about them, I may possibly be promoted to his place, where I could have a better opportunity of doing _something for the arts in our country_, the object at which I aim.”
“_September 3._ I have nothing to do and shall pack up on the morrow for New York unless appearances change again. I have not had full employment since I have been in Albany and I feel miserable in doing nothing. I shall set out on Friday, and perhaps may go to New Haven for a day or two to look at you all.”
He did manage to pay a short visit to his home, and then he started for New York by boat, but was driven by a storm into Black Rock Harbor and continued his journey from there by land. Writing home the day after his arrival he says: “I have obtained a place to board at friend Coolidge’s at two dollars and twenty-five cents a week, and have taken for my studio a fine room in Broadway opposite Trinity Churchyard, for which I am to pay six dollars and fifty cents a week, being fifty cents less than I expected to pay.”
There has been some increase in the rental price of rooms on Broadway opposite Trinity Churchyard since that day.
Further on he says:–
“I shall go to work in a few days vigorously. It is a half mile from my room to the place where I board, so that I am obliged to walk more than three miles every day. It is good exercise for me and I feel better for it. I sleep in my room on the floor and put my bed out of sight during the day, as at Washington. I feel in the spirit of ‘buckling down to it,’ and am determined to paint and study with all my might this winter.”
The loving wife is distressed at the idea of his sleeping on the floor, and thus expresses herself in a letter which is dated, curiously enough, November 31: “You know, dear Finley, I have always set my face as a flint and have borne my testimony against your sleeping on the floor. Indeed, it makes my heart ache, when I go to bed in my comfortable chamber, to think of my dear husband sleeping without a bedstead. Your mother says she sent one to Richard, which he has since told her was unnecessary as he used a settee, and which you can get of him. But, if it is in use, do get one or I shall take no comfort.”
Soon after his arrival in New York he began the portrait of Chancellor Kent, and writing of him he says:–
“He is not a good sitter; he scarcely presents the same view twice; he is very impatient and you well know that I cannot paint an impatient person; I must have my mind at ease or I cannot paint.
“I have no more applications as yet, but it is not time to expect them. All the artists are complaining, and there are many of them, and they are all poor. The arts are as low as they can be. It is no better at the South, and all the accounts of the arts or artists are of the most discouraging nature.”
The portrait of the Chancellor seems not to have brought him more orders, for a little later he writes to his wife: “I waited many days in the hope of some application in my profession, but have been disappointed until last evening I called and spent the evening with my friend Mr. Van Schaick, and told him I had thought of painting some little design from the ‘Sketch Book,’ so as not to be idle, and mentioned the subject of Ichabod Crane discovering the headless horseman.
“He said: ‘Paint it for me and another picture of the same size, and I will take them of you.’ So I am now employed….
“_My secret scheme_ is not yet disclosable, but I shall let you know as soon as I hear anything definite.”
Still later he says:–
“I have seen many of the artists; they all agree that little is doing in the city of New York. It seems wholly given to commerce. Every man is driving at one object–the making of money–not the spending of it….
“My _secret scheme_ looks promising, but I am still in suspense; you shall know the moment it is decided one way or the other.”
His brother, Sidney Edwards, in a letter to his parents of December 9, 1823, says: “Finley is in good spirits again; not because he has any prospect of business here, but he is dreaming of the gold mines of Mexico.”
As his _secret_ was now out, he explains it fully in the following letter to his wife, dated December 21, 1823:–
“My cash is almost gone and I begin to feel some anxiety and perplexity to know what to do. I have advertised, and visited, and hinted, and pleaded, and even asked one man to sit, but all to no purpose…. My expenses, with the most rigid economy, too, are necessarily great; my rent to-morrow will amount to thirty-three dollars, and I have nothing to pay it with.
“What can I do? I have been here five weeks and there is not the smallest prospect _now_ of any difference as to business. I am willing to stay and wish to stay if there is anything to do. The pictures that I am painting for Mr. Van Schaick will not pay my expenses if painted here; my rent and board would eat it all up.
“I have thought of various plans, but what to decide upon I am completely at a loss, nor can I decide until I hear definitely from Washington in regard to my Mexico expedition. Since Brother Sidney has hinted it to you I will tell you the state of it. I wrote to General Van Rensselaer, Mr. Poinsett, and Colonel Hayne, of the Senate, applying for some situation in the legation to Mexico soon to be sent thither. I stated my object in going and my wish to go free of expense and under government protection.
“I received a letter a few days ago from General Van Rensselaer in which he says: ‘I immediately laid your request before the President and seconded it with my warmest recommendations. It is impossible to predict the result at present. If our friend Mr. Poinsett is appointed minister, which his friends are pressing, he will no doubt be happy to have you in his suite.’
“Thus the case rests at present. If Mr. Poinsett is appointed I shall probably go to Mexico, if not, it will be more doubtful…. If I go I should take my picture of the House of Representatives, which, in the present state of favorable feeling towards our country, I should probably dispose of to advantage.
“All accounts that I hear from Mexico are in the highest degree favorable to my enterprise, and I hear much from various quarters.”
As can well be imagined, his wife did not look with unalloyed pleasure on this plan. She says in a letter of December 25, 1823: “I have felt much for you, my dearest Finley, in all your trials and perplexities. I was sorry to hear you had been unsuccessful in obtaining portraits. I hope you will, ere long, experience a change for the better…. As to the Mexico plan, I know not what to think of it. How can I consent to have you be at such a distance?”
However, convinced by her husband that it would be for his best interests to go, she reluctantly gave her consent and he used every legitimate effort to secure the appointment. He was finally successful. Mr. Poinsett was not appointed as minister; this honor was bestowed on the Honorable Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, but Morse was named as one of his suite.
In a note from the Honorable Robert Young Hayne, who, it will be remembered, was the opponent of Daniel Webster in the great debates on States’ Rights in the Senate, Morse was thus apprised of his appointment: “Governor Edwards’s suite consists of Mr. Mason, of Georgetown, D.C., secretary of the legation; Mr. Hodgson, of Virginia, private secretary; and yourself, attache.”
Morse had great hopes of increasing his reputation as a painter and of earning much money in Mexico. He was perfectly frank in stating that his principal object in seeking an appointment as attache was that he might pursue his profession, and, in a letter to Mr. Edwards of April 15, 1824, he thus explains why he considers this not incompatible with his duties as attache: “That the pursuit of my profession will not be derogatory to the situation I may hold I infer from the fact that many of the ancient painters were ambassadors to different European courts, and pursued their professions constantly while abroad. Rubens, while ambassador to the English court, executed some of his finest portraits and decorated the ceiling of the chapel of White Hall with some of his best historical productions.”
When it was finally decided that he should go, he made all his preparations, including a bed and bedding among his impedimenta, being assured that this was necessary in Mexico, and bade farewell to his family.
His father, his wife and children, and his sister-in-law accompanied him