t Fate, in dealing him this
cruel blow, was dedicating him to a higher destiny. It is doubtful if he
ever fully realized this, for in after years he could never speak of it
unmoved. In a letter to this same friend, Fenimore Cooper, written on
November 20, 1849, he thus laments:--

"Alas! My dear sir, the very name of _pictures_ produces a sadness of
heart I cannot describe. Painting has been a smiling mistress to many,
but she has been a cruel jilt to me. I did not abandon her, she abandoned
me. I have taken scarcely any interest in painting for many years. Will
you believe it? When last in Paris, in 1845, I did not go into the
Louvre, nor did I visit a single picture gallery.

"I sometimes indulge a vague dream that I may paint again. It is rather
the memory of past pleasures, when hope was enticing me onward only to
deceive me at last. Except some family portraits, valuable to me from
their likenesses only, I could wish that every picture I ever painted was
destroyed. I have no wish to be remembered as a painter, for I never was
a painter. My ideal of that profession was, perhaps, too exalted--I may
say is too exalted. I leave it to others more worthy to fill the niches
of art."

Of course his self-condemnation was too severe, for we have seen that
present-day critics assign him an honorable place in the annals of art,
and while, at the time of writing that letter, he had definitely
abandoned the brush, he continued to paint for some years after his
rejection by the committee of Congress. He had to, for it was his only
means of earning a livelihood, but the old enthusiasm was gone never to
return. Fortunately for himself and for the world, however, he
transferred it to the perfecting of his invention, and devoted all the
time he could steal from the daily routine of his duties to that end.

His friends sympathized with him most heartily and were indignant at his
rejection. Washington Allston wrote to him:--

I have learned the disposition of the pictures. I had hoped to find your
name among the commissioned artists, but I was grieved to find that all
my efforts in your behalf have proved fruitless. I know what your
disappointment must have been at this result, and most sincerely do I
sympathize with you. That my efforts were both sincere and conscientious
I hope will be some consolation to you.

But let not this disappointment cast you down, my friend. You have it
still in your power to let the world know what y