mpressions of
France.--Paris.--The Louvre.--Lafayette.--Cold in Paris.--Continental
Sunday.--Leaves Paris for Marseilles in diligence.--Intense cold.--
Dijon.--French funeral.--Lyons.--The Hotel Dieu.--Avignon.--Catholic
church services.--Marseilles.--Toulon.--The navy yard and the galley
slaves.--Disagreeable experience at an inn.--The Riviera.--Genoa.

Morse was now thirty-eight years old, in the full vigor of manhood, of a
spare but well-knit frame and of a strong constitution. While all his
life, and especially in his younger years, he was a sufferer from
occasional severe headaches, he never let these interfere with the work
on hand, and, by leading a sane and rational life, he escaped all serious
illnesses. He was not a total abstainer as regards either wine or
tobacco, but was moderate in the use of both; a temperance advocate in
the true sense of the word.

His character had now been moulded both by prosperity and adversity. He
had known the love of wife and children, and of father and mother, and
the cup of domestic happiness had been dashed from his lips. He had
experienced the joy of the artist in successful creation, and the
bitterness of the sensitive soul irritated by the ignorant, and all but
overwhelmed by the struggle for existence. He had felt the supreme joy of
swaying an audience by his eloquence, and he had endured with fortitude
the carping criticism of the envious. Through it all, through prosperity
and through adversity, his hopeful, buoyant nature had triumphed.
Prosperity had not spoiled him, and adversity had but served to refine.
He felt that he had been given talents which he must utilize to the
utmost, that he must be true to himself, and that, above all, he must
strive in every way to benefit his fellow men.

This motive we find recurring again and again in his correspondence and
in his ultimate notes. Not, "What can I do for myself?" but "What can I
do for mankind?" Never falsely humble, but, on the contrary, properly
proud of his achievements, jealous of his own good name and fame and
eager _honestly_ to acquire wealth, he yet ever put the public good above
his private gain.

He was now again in Europe, the goal of his desires for many years, and
he was about to visit the Continent, where he had never been. Paris, with
her treasures of art, Italy, the promised land of every artist, lay
before him.

We shall miss the many intimate letters to his wife and to his parents,
but we shall