entirely to portrait painting as a means of livelihood. His artist
career is thus referred to by Mr. Tuckerman:

"Morse went abroad under the care of Allston, and was the pupil of
West and Copley. Hence he is naturally regarded by a later
generation as the connecting bond that unites the present and the
past in the brief annals of our artist history. But his claim to
such recognition does not lie altogether in the fact that he was a
pioneer; it has been worthily evidenced by his constant devotion to
the great cause itself. Younger artists speak of him with affection
and respect, because he has ever been zealous in the promotion of a
taste for, and a study of, the fine arts. Having entered the field
at too early a period to realize the promise of his youth, and
driven by circumstances from the high aims he cherished,
misanthropy was never suffered to grow out of personal
disappointment. He gazed reverently upon the goal it was not
permitted him to reach, and ardently encouraged the spirit which he
felt was only to be developed when wealth and leisure had given his
countrymen opportunities to cultivate those tastes upon the
prevalence of which the advancement of his favorite pursuit
depends. When, after the failure of one of his elaborate projects,
he resolved to establish himself in New York, he was grieved to
find that many petty dissensions kept the artists from each other.
He made it his business to heal these wounds and reconcile the
animosities that thus retarded the progress of their common object.
He sought out and won the confidence of his isolated brothers, and
one evening invited them all to his room ostensibly to eat
strawberries and cream, but really to beguile them into something
like agreeable intercourse. He had experienced the good effect of a
drawing club at Charleston, where many of the members were
amateurs; and on the occasion referred to covered his table with
prints, and scattered inviting casts around the apartment. A very
pleasant evening was the result, a mutual understanding was
established, and weekly meetings unanimously agreed upon. This
auspicious gathering was the germ of the National Academy of
Design, of which Morse became the first president, and before which
he delivered the first course of lectures on the fine arts e