hat stately edifice. When I had
fixed my choice, the janitor, who accompanied me in my examination of the
rooms, threw open a door on the opposite side of the hall and invited me
to enter. I found myself in what was evidently an artist's studio, but
every object in it bore indubitable signs of unthrift and neglect. The
statuettes, busts, and models of various kinds were covered with dust and
cobwebs; dusty canvases were faced to the wall, and stumps of brushes and
scraps of paper littered the floor. The only signs of industry consisted
of a few masterly crayon drawings, and little luscious studies of color
pinned to the wall.

"'You will have an artist for a neighbor,' said the janitor, 'though he
is not here much of late; he seems to be getting rather shiftless; he is
wasting his time over some silly invention, a machine by which he expects
to send messages from one place to another. He is a very good painter,
and might do well if he would only stick to his business; but, Lord!' he
added with a sneer of contempt, 'the idea of telling by a little streak
of lightning what a body is saying at the other end of it.'

"Judge of my astonishment when he informed me that the 'shiftless
individual' whose foolish waste of time so much excited his
commiseration, was none other than the President of the National Academy
of Design--the most exalted position, in my youthful artistic fancy, it
was possible for mortal to attain--S.F.B. Morse, since better known as
the inventor of the Electric Telegraph. But a little while after this his
fame was flashing through the world, and the unbelievers who voted him
insane were forced to confess that there was, at least, 'method in his
madness.'"

The spring and summer of 1841 wore away and nothing was accomplished. On
August 16 Morse writes to Smith:--

"Our Telegraph matters are in a situation to do none of us any good,
unless some understanding can be entered into among the proprietors. I
have recently received a letter from Mr. Isaac N. Coffin, from
Washington, with a commendatory letter from Hon. R. McClellan, of the
House. Mr. Coffin proposes to take upon himself the labor of urging
through the two houses the bill relating to my Telegraph, which you know
has long been before Congress. He will press it and let his compensation
depend on his success."

This Mr. Coffin wrote many long letters telling, in vivid language, of
the great difficulties which beset the passage of a bill through