Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume I Part 24

"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 antic.i.p.ated 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 inst.i.tution 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 inst.i.tution, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. D.C. DE FOREST MRS. D.C. DE FOREST From "Thistle Prints." Copyright Detroit Publis.h.i.+ng 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 Na.s.sau 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-sc.r.a.per 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 G.o.d.

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 circ.u.mstances but now reduced. Everything bears the appearance of old-fas.h.i.+oned 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.

Circ.u.mstances 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 ca.n.a.l 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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."