Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume I Part 38

"Night had now set in; heavy, dark clouds, with a misty rain, had made the heavens above more dark and gloomy. A man rushed forward toward the gate, hurling his hat in the air, and followed by the crowd, which suddenly formed into long lines behind him. I now looked for something serious. A body of troops was in line before the gate. At this moment two police officers, on horseback, in citizens' dress, but with a tricolored belt around their bodies, rode through the crowd and up to the gate, and in a moment after I perceived the mult.i.tude from one of the streets rus.h.i.+ng in wild confusion into the boulevard, and the current of the people setting back in all directions.

"While wondering at the cause of this sudden movement, I heard the trampling of horses, and a large band of carabiniers, with their bright helmets glittering in the light of the lamps, dashed down the street and drew up before the gate. The police officers put themselves at their head and harangued the people. The address was received with groans. The _carabiniers_ drew their swords, orders were given for the charge, and in an instant they dashed down the street, the people dispersing like the mist before the wind. The charge was made down the opposite sidewalk from that where we had placed ourselves, so I kept my station, and, when they returned up the middle of the street to charge on the other side, I crossed over behind them and avoided them."

I have given enough of this letter to show that Morse was still surrounded by dangers of various sorts, and it is also a good pen-picture of the irresponsible actions of a cowardly mob, especially of a Parisian mob.

The letters which pa.s.sed between Morse and his friends, James Fenimore Cooper, the novelist, and Horatio Greenough, the sculptor, are most interesting, and would of themselves fill a volume. Both Cooper and Greenough wrote fluently and entertainingly, and I shall select a few characteristic sentences from the letters of each, resisting the strong temptation to include the whole correspondence.

Greenough returned to Florence after having roomed with Morse in Paris, and wrote as follows from there:--

As for the commission from Government, I don't speak of it yet. After about a fortnight I shall be calm, I think. Morse, I have made up my mind on one score, namely, that this order shall not be fruitless to the greater men who are now in our rear. They are sucking now and rocking in cradles, but I can hear the pung! pung! puffetty! of their hammers, and I am prophetic, too. We'll see if Yankee land can't muster some ten or a dozen of them in the course of as many years...

You were right, I had heard of the resolution submitted to Congress, etc.

Mr. Cooper wrote me about it. I have not much faith in Congress, however.

I will confess that, when the spectre Debt has leaned over my pillow of late, and, smiling ghastlily, has asked if she and I were not intended as companions through life, I snap my fingers at her and tell her that Brother Jonathan talks of adopting me, and that he won't have her of his household. "Go to London, you hag," says I, "where they say you're handsome and wholesome; don't grind your long teeth at me, or I'll read the Declaration of Independence to ye." So you see I make uncertain hopes fight certain fears, and borrow from the generous, good-natured Future the motives for content which are denied me by the stinted Present...

What shall I say in answer to your remarks on my opinions? Shall I go all over the ground again? It were useless. That my heart is wrong in a thousand ways I daily feel, but 't is my stubborn head which refuses to comprehend the creation as you comprehend it. That we should be grateful for all we have, I feel--for all we have is given us; nor do I think we have little. For my part I would be blest in mere existence were I not goaded by a wish to make my one talent two; and we have Scripture for the rect.i.tude of such a wish. I don't think the stubborn resistance of the tide of ill-fortune can be called rebellion against Providence. "Help yourself and Heaven will help you," says the proverb....

There hangs before me a print of the Bunker Hill Monument. Pray be judge between me and the building committee of that monument. There you observe that my model was founded solidly, and on each of its square plinths were trophies, or groups, or cannon, as might be thought fit. (No. I.)

Well, they have taken away the foundation, made the shaft start sheer from the dirt like a spear of asparagus, and, instead of an acute angle, by which I hoped to show the work was done and lead off the eye, they have made an obtuse one, producing the broken-chimney-like effect which your eye will not fail to condemn in No. II. Then they have enclosed theirs with a light, elegant fence, _a la Parigina_, as though the austere forms of Egypt were compatible with the decorative flummery of the boulevards. Let 'em go for dunderheads as they are....

I congratulate you on your sound conscience with regard to the affair that you wot of. As for your remaining free, that's all very well to think during the interregnum, but a man without a true love is a s.h.i.+p without ballast, a one-tined fork, half a pair of scissors, an utter flash in the pan.... So you are going home, my dear Morse, and G.o.d knows if ever I shall see you again. Pardon, I pray you, anything of levity which you may have been offended at in me. Believe me it arose from my so rarely finding one to whom I could be natural and give loose without fear of good faith or good nature ever failing. Wherever I am your approbation will be dearer to me than the hurrah of a world. I shall write to glorious Fenimore in a few days. My love to Allston and Dana. G.o.d bless you,

H. GREENOUGH.

These extracts are from different letters, but they show, I think, the charming character of the man and reflect his admiration for Morse. From the letters of James Fenimore Cooper, written while they were both in Europe, I select the two following as characteristic:

July 31, 1832.

My dear Morse,--Here we are at Spa--the famous hard-drinking, dissipated, gambling, intriguing Spa--where so much folly has been committed, so many fortunes squandered, and so many women ruined! How are the mighty fallen!

We have just returned from a ramble in the environs, among deserted reception-houses and along silent roads. The country is not unlike b.a.l.l.ston, though less wooded, more cultivated, and perhaps a little more varied.... I have had a great compliment paid me, Master Samuel, and, as it is nearly the only compliment I have received in travelling over Europe, I am the more proud of it. Here are the facts.

You must know there is a great painter in Brussels of the name of Verboeckhoven (which, translated into the vernacular, means a _bull and a book baked in an oven!_), who is another Paul Potter. He outdoes all other men in drawing cattle, etc., with a suitable landscape. In his way he is truly admirable. Well, sir, this artist did me the favor to call at Brussels with the request that I would let him sketch my face. He came after the horses were ordered, and, knowing the difficulty of the task, I thanked him, but was compelled to refuse. On our arrival at Liege we were told that a messenger from the Governor had been to enquire for us, and I began to bethink me of my sins. There was no great cause for fear, however, for it proved that Mr. Bull-and-book-baked had placed himself in the diligence, come down to Liege (sixty-three miles), and got the Governor to give him notice, by means of my pa.s.sport, when we came. Of course I sat.

I cannot say the likeness is good, but it has a vastly life-like look and is like all the other pictures you have seen of my chameleon face. Let that be as it will, the compliment is none the less, and, provided the artist does not mean to serve me up as a specimen of American wild beasts, I shall thank him for it. To be followed twelve posts by a first-rate artist, who is in favor with the King, is so unusual that I was curious to know how far our minds were in unison, and so I probed him a little. I found him well skilled in his art, of course, but ignorant on most subjects. As respects our general views of men and things there was scarcely a point in common, for he has few salient qualities, though he is liberal; but his gusto for natural subjects is strong, and his favorite among all my books is "The Prairie," which, you know, is filled with wild beasts. Here the secret was out. That picture of animal nature had so caught his fancy that he followed me sixty miles to paint a sketch.

While this letter of Cooper's was written in lighter vein, the following extracts from one written on August 19 show another side of his character:--

The criticisms of which you speak give me no concern.... The "Heidenmauer" is not equal to the "Bravo," but it is a good book and better than two thirds of Scott's. They may say it is like his if they please; they have said so of every book I have written, even the "Pilot."

But the "Heidenmauer" is like and was intended to be like, in order to show how differently a democrat and an aristocrat saw the same thing. As for French criticisms they have never been able to exalt me in my own opinion nor to stir my bile, for they are written with such evident ignorance (I mean of English books) as to be beneath notice. What the deuce do I care whether my books are on their shelves or not? What did I ever get from France or Continental Europe? Neither personal favors nor money. But this they cannot understand, for so conceited is a Frenchman that many of them think that I came to Paris to be paid. Now I never got the difference in the boiling of the pot between New York and Paris in my life. The "Journal des Debats" was snappish with "Water Witch," merve [?]

I believe with "Bravo," and let it bark at "Heidenmauer" and be hanged.

No, no more. The humiliation comes from home. It is biting to find that accident has given me a country which has not manliness and pride to maintain its own opinions, while it is overflowing with conceit. But never mind all this. See that you do not decamp before my departure and I'll promise not to throw myself into the Rhine....

I hope the Fourth of July is not breaking out in Habersham's noddle, for I can tell him that was the place most affected during the dinner. Adieu,

Yours as ever, J. FENIMORE COOPER.

The Mr. Habersham here jokingly referred to was R.W. Habersham, of Augusta, Georgia, who in the year 1831 was an art student in the _atelier_ of Baron Gros, and between whom and Morse a friends.h.i.+p sprang up. They roomed together at a time when the cholera was raging in Paris, but, owing to Mr. Habersham's wise insistence that all the occupants of the house should take a teaspoonful of charcoal every morning, all escaped the disease.

Mr. Habersham in after years wrote and sent to Morse some of his reminiscences of that period, and from these I shall quote the following as being of more than ordinary interest:--

"The Louvre was always closed on Monday to clean up the gallery after the popular exhibition of the paintings on Sunday, so that Monday was our day for visits, excursions, etc. On one occasion I was left alone, and two or three times during the week he was absent. This was unusual, but I asked no questions and made no remarks. But on Sat.u.r.day evening, sitting by our evening lamp, he seemed lost in thought, till suddenly he remarked: 'The mails in our country are too slow; this French telegraph is better, and would do even better in our clear atmosphere than here, where half the time fogs obscure the skies. But this will not be fast enough--_the lightning would serve us better_.'

"These may not be the exact words, but they convey the sense, and I, laughing, said: 'Aha! I see what you have been after, you have been examining the French system of telegraphing.' He admitted that he had taken advantage of the kind offer of one in authority to do so....

"There was, on one occasion, another reference made to the conveyance of sound under water, and to the length of time taken to communicate the letting in of the water into the Erie Ca.n.a.l by cannon shots to New York, and other means, during which the suggestion of using keys and wires, like the piano, was rejected as requiring too many wires, if other things were available. I recollect also that in our frequent visits to Mr. J.

Fenimore Cooper's, in the Rue St. Dominique, these subjects, so interesting to Americans, were often introduced, and that Morse seemed to harp on them, constantly referring to Franklin and Lord Bacon. Now I, while recognizing the intellectual grandeur of both these men, had contracted a small opinion of their moral strength; but Morse would uphold and excuse, or rather deny, the faults attributed. Lord Bacon, especially, he held to have _sacrificed himself to serve the queen in her aberrations_; while of Franklin, 'the Great American,' recognized by the French, he was particularly proud."

Cooper also remembered some such hints of a telegraph made by Morse at that time, for in "The Sea Lions,"[1] on page 161, he says:--

[Footnote 1: The Riverside Press, 1870.]

"We pretend to no knowledge on the subject of the dates of discoveries in the arts and sciences, but well do we remember the earnestness, and single-minded devotion to a laudable purpose, with which our worthy friend first communicated to us his ideas on the subject of using the electric spark by way of a telegraph. It was in Paris and during the winter of 1831-82 and the succeeding spring, and we have a satisfaction in recording this date that others may prove better claims if they can."

Curiously enough, Morse himself could, in after years, never remember having suggested at that time the possibility of using electricity to convey intelligence. He always insisted that the idea first came to him a few months later on his return voyage to America, and in 1849 he wrote to Mr. Cooper saying that he must be mistaken, to which the latter replied, under date of May 18:--

"For the time I still stick to Paris, so does my wife, so does my eldest daughter. You did no more than to throw out the general idea, but I feel quite confident this occurred in Paris. I confess I thought the notion evidently chimerical, and as such spoke of it in my family. I always set you down as a sober-minded, common-sense sort of a fellow, and thought it a high flight for a painter to make to go off on the wings of the lightning. We may be mistaken, but you will remember that the priority of the invention was a question early started, and my impressions were the same much nearer to the time than it is to-day."

That the recollections of his friends were probably clearer than his own on this point is admitted by Morse in the following letter:--

IRVING HOUSE, NEW YORK, September 5, 1849.

My Dear Sir,--I was agreeably surprised this morning in conversing with Professor Renwick to find that he corroborates the fact you have mentioned in your "Sea Lions" respecting the earlier conception of my telegraph by me, than the date I had given, and which goes only so far back in my own recollection as 1832. Professor Renwick insists that immediately after Professor Dana's lectures at the New York Athenaeum, I consulted with him on the subject of the velocity of electricity and in such a way as to indicate to him that I was contriving an electric telegraph. The consultation I remember, but I did not recollect the time.

He will depose that it was before I went to Europe, after those lectures; now I went in 1829; this makes it almost certain that the impression you and Mrs. Cooper and your daughter had that I conversed with you on the subject in 1831 after my return from Italy is correct.

If you are still persuaded that this is so, your deposition before the Commission in this city to that fact will render me an incalculable service. I will cheerfully defray your expenses to and from the city if you will meet me here this week or beginning of next.

In haste, but with best respects to Mrs. Cooper and family,

I am, dear sir, as ever your friend and servant, SAML. F. B. MORSE.

J. FENIMORE COOPER, ESQ.

All this is interesting, but, of course, has no direct bearing on the actual date of invention. It is more than probable that Morse did, while he was studying the French semaph.o.r.es, and at an even earlier date, dream vaguely of the possibility of using electricity for conveying intelligence, and that he gave utterance among his intimates to these dreams; but the practical means of so utilizing this mysterious agent did not take shape in his mind until 1832. An inchoate vision of the possibility of using electricity is far different from an actual plan eventually elaborated into a commercial success.

Another extract from Mr. Habersham's reminiscences, on a totally different subject, will be found interesting: "I have forgot to mention that one day, while in the Rue Surenne, I was studying from my own face reflected in a gla.s.s, as is often done by young artists, when I remarked how grand it would be if we could invent a method of fixing the image on the mirror. Professor Morse replied that he had thought of it while a pupil at Yale, and that Professor Silliman (I think) and himself had tried it with a wash of nitrate of silver on a piece of paper, but that, unfortunately, it made the lights _dark_ and the shadows _light_, but that if they could be reversed, we should have a facsimile like India-ink drawings. Had they thought of using gla.s.s, as is now done, the daguerreotype would have been perhaps antic.i.p.ated--certainly the photograph."

This is particularly interesting because, as I shall note later on, Morse was one of the pioneers in experimenting with the daguerreotype in America.

Among the paintings which Morse executed while he was in Paris was a very ambitious one. This was an interior of one of the galleries in the Louvre with carefully executed miniature copies of some of the most celebrated canvases. Writing of it, and of the dreadful epidemic of cholera, to his brothers on May 6, 1832, he says:--

"My anxiety to finish my picture and to return drives me, I fear, to too great application and too little exercise, and my health has in consequence been so deranged that I have been prevented from the speedy completion of my picture. From nine o'clock until four daily I paint uninterruptedly at the Louvre, and, with the closest application, I shall not be able to finish it before the close of the gallery on the 10th of August. The time each morning before going to the gallery is wholly employed in preparation for the day, and, after the gallery closes at four, dinner and exercise are necessary, so that I have no time for anything else.

"The cholera is raging here, and I can compare the state of mind in each man of us only to that of soldiers in the heat of battle; all the usual securities of life seem to be gone. Apprehension and anxiety make the stoutest hearts quail. Any one feels, when he lays himself down at night, that he will in all probability be attacked before daybreak; for the disease is a pestilence that walketh in darkness, and seizes the greatest number of its victims at the most helpless hour of the night. Fifteen hundred were seized in a day, and fifteen thousand at least have already perished, although the official accounts will not give so many.

"_May 14._ My picture makes progress and I am sanguine of success if nothing interferes to prevent its completion. I shall take no more commissions here and shall only complete my large picture and a few unfinished works.