brought together, it would be found that he deserved
an honored place among the foremost American artists."

This was an estimate of Morse's ability as a painter by a man of his own
day, a friend and pupil. As this would, naturally, be somewhat biased, it
will be more to the point to see what a competent critic of the present
day has to say.

Mr. Samuel Isham, in his authoritative "History of American Painting,"
published in 1910, after giving a brief biographical sketch of Morse and
telling why he came to abandon the brush, thus sums up:--

"It was a serious loss, for Morse, without being a genius, was yet,
perhaps, better calculated than another to give in pictures the spirit of
the difficult times from 1830 to 1860. He was a man sound in mind and
body, well born, well educated, and both by birth and education in
sympathy with his time. He had been abroad, had seen good work, and
received sound training. His ideals were not too far ahead of his public.
Working as he did under widely varying conditions, his paintings are
dissimilar, not only in merit but in method of execution; even his
portraits vary from thin, free handling to solid _impasto_. Yet in the
best of them there is a real painter's feeling for his material; the
heads have a soundness of construction and a freshness in the carnations
that recall Raeburn rather than West; the poses are graceful or
interesting, the costumes are skilfully arranged, and in addition he
understands perfectly the character of his sitters, the men and women of
the transition period, shrewd, capable, but rather commonplace, without
the ponderous dignity of Copley's subjects or the cosmopolitan graces of
a later day.

"The struggles incident to the invention and development of telegraphy
turned Morse from the practice of art, but up to the end of his life he
was interested in it and aggressive in any scheme for its advancement."

I think that from the letters, notes, etc., which I have in the preceding
pages brought together, a clear conception of Morse's character can be
formed. The dominant note was an almost childlike religious faith; a
triumphant trust in the goodness of God even when his hand was wielding
the rod; a sincere belief in the literal truth of the Bible, which may
seem strange to us of the twentieth century; a conviction that he was
destined in some way to accomplish a great good for his fellow men.

Next to love of God came love of country. He was patriotic in