Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume I Part 19

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 sh.o.r.e. We have had 58 days pa.s.sage 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.--Rea.s.sured by Allston.--Humorous letter from Leslie.--Goes to New Hamps.h.i.+re 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 Hamps.h.i.+re.--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 Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 inst.i.tution 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 ingrat.i.tude 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 a.s.sured 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sage:--

"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 n.o.bility to strip and exhibit themselves naked to the artists in various att.i.tudes, 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 princ.i.p.al lights. The Marquis of Stafford, unfortunately, could not recollect the att.i.tude 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 Hamps.h.i.+re:--

"I have been in this place since Monday evening. I arrived safely....

Ma.s.sabesek 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 circ.u.mstance. If none offer, I shall go for Hanover on Sat.u.r.day 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sertions 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 princ.i.p.al 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."