s....

"Professor Morse's love of scientific experiments was shown in his artist
life. He formed theories of color, tried experiments with various
vehicles, oils, varnishes, and pigments. His studio was a kind of
laboratory. A beautiful picture of his wife and two children was painted,
he told me, with colors ground in milk, and the effect was juicy, creamy,
and pearly to a degree. Another picture was commenced with colors mixed
with beer; afterwards solidly impasted and glazed with rich, transparent
tints in varnish. His theory of color is fully explained in the account
of his life in Dunlap's 'Arts of Design.' He proved its truth by boxes
and balls of various colors. He had an honest, solid, vigorous _impasto_,
which he strongly insisted on in his instructions--a method which was
like the great masters of the Venetian school. This method was modified
in his practice by his studies under West in England, and by his intimacy
with Allston, for whose genius he had a great reverence, and by whose way
of painting he was strongly influenced.

"He was a lover of simple, unaffected truth, and this trait is shown in
his works as an artist. He had a passion for color, and rich, harmonious
tints run through his pictures, which are glowing and mellow, and yet
pearly and delicate.

"He had a true painter's eye, but he was hindered from reaching the fame
his genius promised as a painter by various distractions, such as the
early battles of the Academy of Design in its struggles for life,
domestic afflictions, and, more than all, the engrossing cares of his
invention.

[Illustration: SUSAN MORSE
Eldest daughter of the artist.]

"The 'Hercules,' with its colossal proportions and daring attitude, is
evidence of the zeal and courage of his early studies.... It is worthy of
being carefully preserved in a public gallery, not only as an instance of
successful study in a young artist (Morse was in his twenty-first year),
but as possessing high artistic merit, and a force and richness which
plainly show that, if his energies had not been diverted, he might have
achieved a name in art equal to the greatest of his contemporaries....

"Professor Morse's world-wide fame rests, of course, on his invention of
the electric telegraph; but it should be remembered that the qualities of
mind which led to it were developed in the progress of his art studies,
and if his paintings, in the various fields of history, portrait, and
landscape, could be