his brother Richard before leaving Europe he
had thus given expression to his fears:--

"I have frequently felt melancholy in thinking of my prospects for
encouragement when I return, and your letter found me in one of those
moments. You cannot, therefore, conceive with what feelings I read your
offer of a room in your new house. Give me a resting-place and I will yet
move the country in favor of the arts. I return with some hopes but many
fears. Will my country employ me on works which may do it honor? I want a
commission from Government to execute two pictures from the life of
Columbus, and I want eight thousand dollars for each, and on these two I
will stake my reputation as an artist."

It was in his brother Richard's house that he took the first step towards
the construction of the apparatus which was to put his invention to a
practical test. This was the manufacture of the saw-toothed type by which
he proposed to open and close the circuit and produce his conventional
signs. He did not choose the most appropriate place for this operation,
for his sister-in-law rather pathetically remarked: "He melted the lead
which he used over the fire in the grate of my front parlor, and, in his
operation of casting the type, he spilled some of the heated metal upon
the drugget, or loose carpeting, before the fireplace, and upon a
flagbottomed chair upon which his mould was placed."

He was also handicapped by illness just after his return, as we learn
from the following letter to his friend Fenimore Cooper. In this letter
he also makes some interesting comments on New York and American affairs,
but, curiously enough, he says nothing of his invention:

"_February 21, 1833._ Don't scold at me. I don't deserve a scolding if
you knew all, and I do if you don't know all, for I have not written to
you since I landed in November. What with severe illness for several
weeks after my arrival, and the accumulation of cares consequent on so
long an absence from home, I have been overwhelmed and distracted by
calls upon my time for a thousand things that pressed upon me for
immediate attention; and so I have put off and put off what I have been
longing (I am ashamed to say for weeks if not months) to do, I mean to
write to you.

"The truth is, my dear sir, I have so much to say that I know not where
to commence. I throw myself on your indulgence, and, believing you will
forgive me, I commence without further apology.

"First, as to t