Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume I Part 2

Your obedient servant, J. MORSE.

December 26, 1806.

LINDLEY MURRAY ESQ.,

DEAR SIR,--Your polite note and the valuable books accompanying it, forwarded by our friend Perkins, of New York, have been duly and gratefully received.

You will perceive, by the number of the "Panoplist" enclosed, that we are strangers neither to your works nor your character. It has given me much pleasure as an American to make both more extensively known among my countrymen.

I have purchased several hundred of your spelling books for a charitable society to which I belong, and they have been dispersed in the new settlements in our country, where I hope they will do immediate good, besides creating a desire and demand for more. It will ever give me pleasure to hear from you when convenient. Letters left at Mr. Taylor's will find me.

I herewith send you two or three pamphlets and a copy of the last edition of my "American Gazetteer" which I pray you to accept as a small token of the high respect and esteem with which I am

Your friend, J. MORSE.

Young Morse now settled down to serious work as the following extracts will show, which I set down without further comment, pa.s.sing rapidly over the next few years. He was, however, not entirely absorbed in his books but still longed for the pleasures of the chase:--

"May 13, 1807. Just now I asked Mr. Twining to let me go a-gunning for this afternoon. He told me you had expressly forbidden it and he therefore could not. Now I should wish to go once in a while, for I always intend to be careful. I have no amus.e.m.e.nt now in the vacation, and it would gratify me very much if you would consent to let me go once in a while. I suppose you would tell me that my books ought to be my amus.e.m.e.nt. I cannot study all the time and I need some exercise. If I walk, that is no amus.e.m.e.nt, and if I wish to play ball or anything else, I have no one to play with. Please to write me an answer as soon as"

possible.

June 7, 1807.

MY DEAR PARENTS,--I hope you will excuse my not writing you sooner when I inform you that my time is entirely taken up with my studies.

In the morning I must rise at five o'clock to attend prayers and, immediately after, recitation; then I must breakfast and begin to study from eight o'clock till eleven; then recite my forenoon's lesson which takes me an hour.

At twelve I must study French till one, which is dinner-time. Directly after dinner I must recite French to Monsieur Value till two o'clock, then begin to study my afternoon lesson and recite it at five.

Immediately after recitation I must study another French lesson to recite at seven in the evening; come home at nine o'clock and study my morning's lesson until ten, eleven, and sometimes twelve o'clock, and by that tine I am prepared to sleep.... You see now I have enough to do, my hands as full as can be, not five minutes' time to take recreation. I am determined to study and, thus far, have not missed a single word. The students call me by the nickname of "Geography."

"_June 18, 1807._ Last week I went to Mr. Beers and saw a set of Montaigne's 'Essays' in French in eight volumes, duodecimo, handsomely bound in calf and gilt, for two dollars. The reason they are so cheap is because they are wicked and bad books for me or anybody else to read. I got them because they were cheap, and have exchanged them for a handsome English edition of 'Gil Blas'; price, $4.50."

In the fall of 1807 Finley Morse returned to college accompanied by his next younger brother, Sidney Edwards. In a letter of March 6, 1808, he says: "Edwards and myself are very well and I believe we are doing well, but you will learn more of that from our instructors."

In this same letter he says:--

"I find it impossible to live in college without spending money. At one time a letter is to be paid for, then comes up a great tax from the cla.s.s or society, which keeps me constantly running after money. When I have money in my hand I feel as though I had stolen it, and it is with the greatest pain that I part with it. I think every minute I shall receive a letter from home blaming me for not being more economical, and thus I am kept in distress all the time.

"The amount of my expenses for the last term was fifteen dollars, expended in the following manner:--

Dols. Cts.

"Postage $2.05 Oil .50 Taxes, fines, etc. 3.00 Oysters .50 Washbowl .37-1/2 Skillet .33 Axe $1.33 Catalogues .12 1.45 Powder and shot 1.12-1/2 Cakes, etc. etc. etc. 1.75 Wine, Thanks. day .20 Toll on bridge .15 Grinding axe .08 Museum .25 Poor man .14 Carriage for trunk 1.00 Pitcher .41 14.75-1/2 Sharpening skates .37-1/2 Paid for Circ. Library .25 cutting wood .25 Post papers .57 Lent never to be returned .25

$14.75-1/2 15.00-1/2

"In my expenses I do not include my wood, tuition bills, board or was.h.i.+ng bills."

How characteristic of all boys of all times the "etc., etc., etc.,"

tacked on to the "cakes" item, and how many boys of the present day would bewail the extravagance of fifteen dollars spent in one term on extras?

In a postscript in this same letter he says: "The students are very fond of raising balloons at present. I will (with your leave) when I return home make one. They are pleasant sights."

College terms were very different in those days from what they are at present, for September 5 finds the boys still in New Haven, and Finley says, "There is but three and a half weeks to Commencement."

In this same letter he gives utterance to these filial sentiments: "I now make those only my companions who are the most religious and moral, and I hope sincerely that it will have a good effect in changing that thoughtless disposition which has ever been a striking trait in my character. As I grow older, I begin to think better of what you have always told me when I was small. I begin to know by experience that man is born to trouble, and that temptations to do evil are as countless as the stars, but I hope I shall be enabled to shun them."

This is from a letter of January 9, 1809:--

"I have been reading the first volume of Professor Silliman's 'Journal'

which he kept during his pa.s.sage to and residence in Europe. I am very much pleased with it. I long for the time when I shall be able to travel with improvement to myself and society, and hope it will be in your power to a.s.sist me.

"I have a very ardent desire of travelling, but I consider that an education is indispensable to me and I mean to apply myself with all diligence for that purpose. _Diligentia vinrit omnia_ is my maxim and I shall endeavor to follow it.... I shall be employed in the vacation in the Philosophical Chamber with Mr. Dwight, who is going to perform a number of experiments in _Electricity_."

It is, of course, only a curious coincidence that these two sentences should have occurred in the same letter, but it was when travelling, many years afterwards, that the first idea of the electric telegraph found lodgment in his brain, and this certainly resulted in improvement to himself and society.

In February, 1809, he writes: "My studies are at present Optics in Philosophy, Dialling, Homer, beside disputing, composing, attending lectures etc. etc., all which I find very interesting and especially Mr.

Day's lectures who is now lecturing on _Electricity_."

Young Morse's thoughts seem to have been gradually focusing on the two subjects to which he afterwards devoted his life, for in a letter of March 8, 1809, he says: "Mr. Day's lectures are very interesting. They are upon Electricity. He has given us some very fine experiments. The whole cla.s.s taking hold of hands formed the circuit of communication and we all received the shock apparently at the same moment. I never took an electric shock before. It felt as if some person had struck me a slight blow across the arms.... I think with pleasure that two thirds of this term only remain. As soon as that is pa.s.sed away, I hope I shall again see home. I really long to see Charlestown again; I have almost forgotten how it looks. I have some thoughts of taking a view of Boston from Bunker's Hill when I go home again. It will be some pleasure to me to have some picture of my native place to look upon when I am from home."

And in August, 1809, he writes to his parents: "I employ all my leisure time in painting. I have a great number of persons engaged already to be drawn on ivory, no less than seven. They obtain the ivories for themselves. I have taken Professor Kingsley's profile for him. It is a good likeness of him and he is pleased with it. I think I shall take his likeness on ivory and present it to him as my present at the end of the year.... I have finished Miss Leffingwell's miniature. It is a good likeness and she is very much pleased with it."

NEW HAVEN, May 29, 1810.

MY DEAR PARENTS,--I arrived in this place on Sabbath evening by packet from New York. I left Philadelphia on Thursday morning at eight o'clock and arrived in New York on Friday at ten....

I stayed in New York but one night. I found it quite insipid after seeing Philadelphia. [The character of the two cities seems to have changed a trifle in a hundred years, for, with all her faults, no one could nowadays accuse New York of being insipid.] I went on board the packet on Sat.u.r.day at twelve o'clock and arrived, as I before stated, on Sabbath evening. We had, on the whole, a very good set of pa.s.sengers from New York to this place. On Sunday we had two sermons read to us by one of them, Dr. Hawley, of this place, and in the evening we sang five psalms, and during the whole of the exercises the pa.s.sengers conducted themselves with perfect decorum, although one of the sermons was one hour in length....

June 25, 1810.

MY DEAR PARENTS,--I received yours of the 23d this day and receive with humility your reproof. I am extremely sorry it should have occasioned so many disagreeable feelings. I felt it my duty to tell you of my debts, and, indeed, I could not feel easy without. The amount of my b.u.t.tery bill is forty-two or forty-three dollars.

Mr. Nettleton is butler and is willing I should take his likeness as part pay. I shall take it on ivory, and he has engaged to allow me seven dollars for it. My price is five dollars for a miniature on ivory, and. I have engaged three or four at that price. My price for profiles is one dollar, and everybody is ready to engage me at that price.... Though I have been much to blame in the present case, yet I think it but just that Mr. Twining should bear his part.

I had begun with a determination to pay for everything as I got it, but was stopped in this in the very beginning, for, in going to Mr. T. to get money, I have five times out of six found him absent, sometimes for the whole day, sometimes for a week or two weeks, and once he was absent six weeks and made no sort of provision for us. Mrs. T. is never trusted with money for us. Now in such case I am obliged by necessity to get a thing charged, and I have found by sad experience that a bill increases faster than I had in the least imagined....

"_July 22, 1810._ I am now released from college and am attending to painting. All my cla.s.s were accepted as candidates for degrees. Edwards is admitted a member of [Greek: Phi][Greek: Beta][Greek: Kappa] Society, and is appointed as monitor to the next Freshman Cla.s.s. Richard is chosen as one of the speakers the evening before Commencement.

"Edwards and Richard are both of them very steady and good scholars, and are much esteemed by the authority of college as well as their fellow students.

"As to my choice of a profession, I still think that I was made for a painter, and I would be obliged to you to make such arrangement with Mr.

Allston for my studying with him as you shall think expedient. I should desire to study with him during the winter, and, as he expects to return to England in the spring, I should admire to be able to go with him."

In answer to this letter his father wrote:--

CHARLESTOWN, July 26, 1810.

DEAR Finley,--I received your letter of the 22d to-day by mail.

On the subject of your future pursuits we will converse when I see you and when you get home. It will be best for you to form no plans. Your mama and I have been thinking and planning for you. I shall disclose to you our plan when I see you. Till then suspend your mind.

It gives us great pleasure to have you speak so well of your brothers.