Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume I Part 25

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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 princ.i.p.al 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 amba.s.sadors to different European courts, and pursued their professions constantly while abroad. Rubens, while amba.s.sador 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 a.s.sured 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 as far as New York. Writing of the parting he says: "A thousand affecting incidents of separation from my beloved family crowded upon my recollection. The unconscious gayety of my dear children as they frolicked in all their wonted playfulness, too young to sympathize in the pangs that agitated their distressed parents; their artless request to bring home some trifling toy; the parting kiss, not understood as meaning more than usual; the tears and sad farewells of father, mother, wife, sister, family, friends; the desolateness of every room as the parting glance is thrown on each familiar object, and 'farewell, farewell' seemed written on the very walls,--all these things bear upon my memory, and I realize the declaration that 'the places which now know us shall know us no more.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: LUCRETIA PICKERING WALKER, WIFE OF S.F.B. MORSE, AND TWO CHILDREN Painted by Morse]

It must be borne in mind that a journey in those days, even one from New York to Was.h.i.+ngton, was not a few hours' ride in a luxurious Pullman, but was fraught with many discomforts, delays, and even dangers.

As an example of this I shall quote the first part of a letter written by Morse from Was.h.i.+ngton to his wife on April 11, 1824:--

"I lose not a moment in informing you of my safe arrival, with all my baggage, in good order last evening. I was much fatigued, went to bed early, and this morning feel perfectly refreshed and much better for my journey.

"After leaving you on Wednesday morning I had but just time to reach the boat before she started. In the land carriage we occupied three stages over a very rough road. In crossing a small creek in a ferry-boat the stage ahead of ours left the boat a little too soon and came near upsetting in the water, which would have put the pa.s.sengers into a dangerous situation. As it was the water came into the carriage and wet some of the baggage. It was about an hour before they could get the stage out of the water.

"Next came our turn. After travelling a few miles the springs on one side gave way and let us down, almost upsetting us. We got out without difficulty and, in a few minutes, by putting a rail under one side, we proceeded on again, jocosely telling the pa.s.sengers in the third stage that it was their turn next.

"When we arrived at the boat in the Delaware to our surprise the third stage came in with a rail under one side, having met with a similar accident a few miles after we left them. So we all had our turn, but no injury to any of us."

His high hopes of success in this enterprise were soon doomed to be shattered, and once again he was made to suffer a bitter disappointment.

On April 19 he writes: "I am at this moment put into a very embarra.s.sing state of suspense by a political occurrence which has caused a great excitement here, and will cause considerable interest, no doubt, throughout the country. This morning a remonstrance was read in the House of Representatives from the Honorable Ninian Edwards against Mr.

Crawford, which contains such charges and of so serious a nature as has led to the appointment of a select committee, with power to send for persons and papers in order to a full investigation; and I am told by many members of Congress that Mr. Edwards will undoubtedly be sent for, which will occasion, of course, a great delay in his journey to Mexico, if not cause a suspension of his going until the next season."

The Mr. Crawford alluded to was William Harris Crawford, at that time a prominent candidate for the Presidency in the coming election.

With his customary faith in an overruling Providence, Morse says later in the same letter: "This delay and suspense tries me more than distance or even absence from my dear family. If I could be on my way and pursuing my profession I should feel much better. But all will be for the best; though things look dark I can and will trust Him who will make my path of duty plain before me. This satisfies my mind and does not allow a single desponding thought."

The sending of the legation was indefinitely postponed, and Morse, much disappointed but resolved not to be overwhelmed by this crus.h.i.+ng of his high hopes, returned to New Haven.

He spent the summer partly at home and partly in Concord, New Hamps.h.i.+re (where his wife and children had gone to visit her father), and in Portsmouth, Portland, and Hartford, having been summoned to those cities by patrons who wished him to paint their portraits.

We can imagine that the young wife did not grieve over the failure of the Mexican trip. Her letters to her husband at that period are filled with expressions of the deepest affection, but with an undertone of melancholy, due, no doubt, to the increasing delicacy of her health, never very robust.

In the fall of 1824 Morse resolved to make another a.s.sault on the purses of the solid men of New York, and he established himself at 96 Broadway, where, for a time, he had the satisfaction of having his wife and children with him. They, however, returned later to New Haven, and on December 5, 1824, he writes to his wife:--

"I am fully employed and in excellent spirits. I am engaged in painting the full-length portrait of Mr. Hone's little daughter, a pretty little girl just as old as Susan. I have made a sketch of the composition with which I am pleased, and so are the father and mother. I shall paint her with a cat set up in her lap like a baby, with a towel under its chin and a cap on its head, and she employed in feeding it with a spoon....

"I am as happy and contented as I can be without my dear Lucrece and our dear children, but I hope it will not be long before we shall be able to live together without these separations."

"_December 17, 1824._ I have everything very comfortable at my rooms. My two pupils, Mr. Agate and Mr. Field, are very tractable and very useful.

I have everything 'in Pimlico,' as mother would say.

"I have begun, and thus far carried on, a system of neatness in my painting-room which I never could have with Henry. Everything has its place, and every morning the room is swept and all things put in order....

"I have as much as I can do in painting. I do not mean by this that I have the overflow that I had in Charleston, nor do I wish it. A hard shower is soon over; I wish rather the gentle, steady, continuing rain. I feel that I have a character to obtain and maintain, and therefore my pictures must be carefully studied. I shall not by this method paint so fast nor acquire property so fast, but I shall do what is better, secure a continuance of patronage and success.

"I have no disposition to be a nine days' wonder, all the rage for a moment and then forgotten forever; compelled on this very account to wander from city to city, to s.h.i.+ne a moment in one and then pa.s.s on to another."

In a letter of a later date he says:--

"I am going on prosperously through the kindness of Providence in raising up many friends who are exerting themselves in my favor. My storms are partly over, and a clear and pleasant day is dawning upon me."

CHAPTER XIII

JANUARY 4, 1825--NOVEMBER 18, 1825

Success in New York.--Chosen to paint portrait of Lafayette.--Hope of a permanent home with his family.--Meets Lafayette in Was.h.i.+ngton.--Mutually attracted.--Attends President's levee.--Begins portrait of Lafayette.-- Death of his wife.--Crushed by the news.--His attachment to her.--Epitaph composed by Benjamin Silliman.--Bravely takes up his work again.-- Finishes portrait of Lafayette.--Describes it in letter of a later date.

--Sonnet on death of Lafayette's dog.--Rents a house in Ca.n.a.l Street, New York.--One of the founders of National Academy of Design.--Tactful resolutions on organization.--First thirty members.--Morse elected first president.--Reelected every year until 1845.--Again made president in 1861.--Lectures on Art.--Popularity.

It is a commonly accepted belief that a particularly fine, clear day is apt to be followed by a storm. Meteorologists can probably give satisfactory scientific reasons for this phenomenon, but, be that as it may, how often do we find a parallel in human affairs. A period of prosperity and happiness in the life of a man or of a nation is almost invariably followed by calamities, small or great; but, fortunately for individuals and for nations, the converse is also true. The creeping pendulum of fate, pausing for an instant at its highest point, dips down again to gather impetus for a higher swing.

And so it was with Morse. Fate was preparing for him a heavy blow, one of the tragedies of his eventful life, and, in order to hearten him for the trial, to give him strength to bear up under it, she cheered his professional path with the sun of prosperity.

Writing to his wife from New York on January 4, 1825, he says:--