hat, right or wrong, Morse
was intensely sincere, and that he had the courage of his opinions.

Returning to an earlier date, and turning from matters political to the
gentler arts of peace, we find that the one-time artist had always hoped
that some day he could resume his brush, which the labors incident to the
invention of the telegraph had compelled him to drop. But it seems that
his hand, through long disuse, had lost its cunning. He bewails the fact
in a letter of January 20, 1864, to N. Jocelyn, Esq.:--

"I have many yearnings towards painting and sculpture, but that rigid
faculty called reason, so opposed often to imagination, reads me a
lecture to which I am compelled to bow. To explain: I made the attempt to
draw a short time ago; everything in the drawing seemed properly
proportioned, but, upon putting it in another light, I perceived that
every perpendicular line was awry. In other words I found that I could
place no confidence in my eyes.

"No, I have made the sacrifice of my profession to establish an invention
which is doing mankind a great service. I pursued it long enough to found
an institution which, I trust, is to flourish long after I am gone, and
be the means of educating a noble class of men in Art, to be an honor and
praise to our beloved country when peace shall once more bless us
throughout all our borders in one grand brotherhood of States."

The many letters to his children are models of patient exhortation and
cheerful optimism, when sometimes the temptation to indulge in pessimism
was strong. I shall give, as an example, one written on May 9, 1864, to
two of his sons who had returned to school at Newport:--

"Now we hope to have good reports of your progress in your studies. In
spring, you know, the farmers sow their seed which is to give them their
harvest at the close of the summer. If they were not careful to put the
seed in the ground, thinking it would do just as well about August or
September, or if they put in very little seed, you can see that they
cannot expect to reap a good or abundant crop.

"Now it is just so in regard to your life. You are in the springtime of
life. It is seed time. You must sow now or you will reap nothing
by-and-by, or, if anything, only weeds. Your teachers are giving you the
seed in your various studies. You cannot at present understand the use of
them, but you must take them on trust; you must believe that your parents
and teachers have had experienc