egan to paint miniatures to order, his price being five
dollars for those painted on ivory, and one dollar for profiles, and he
says, "Everybody is ready to engage me at that price."

When his college course was at an end Finley wished to take up painting
for a profession, but of this his parents did not approve, so for a
short time he was apprenticed to a bookshop-keeper, but was so unhappy
that Dr. and Mrs. Morse finally decided to let him become an artist,
and when he was nineteen years old he went to Europe with the
well-known artist, Washington Allston, to study art. In London he met
Benjamin West, the famous painter, to whom Morse "a young pilgrim from
the United States, modest and gentle, with his foot not yet on the
first rung of the ladder of fame" made a great appeal, and West took
the youth under his personal supervision, and felt enormous pride in
his progress, for Finley's picture of the dying Hercules at the Royal
Academy exhibition was named as one of the twelve best among two
thousand exhibited, and his cast of Hercules took the gold medal at the
Adelphi Society of Fine Arts.

Back again in America after four years abroad, young Morse had years of
struggle ahead, but with undaunted courage continued to work, and at
last, despite all obstacles won success as an artist. But of that no
more in this brief sketch which has to do with the Inventor.

We have seen the child in school, the boy in college, the budding
artist in his training, have watched him painting and making electrical
experiments with equal enthusiasm, and now he is no longer a boy, but
Morse, the man, when on that April day in 1832 we find him on the deck
of the packet-ship _Sully_. There, alone with the mighty influences of
Nature and his new idea, he is working out the first crude principles
of the Telegraph system which in after years was to be such a
revolutionizing factor in civilization and commerce.

Came years of struggle against what seemed to be overwhelming
obstacles, but Morse was equal to the emergencies of the case and we
have one more glimpse of him as the man who succeeded.

After twelve years of hard work to achieve his ends, a bill was passed
by the Senate appropriating thirty thousand dollars for testing the
Morse Telegraph. A young woman, Miss Ellsworth, had the good fortune to
carry the news to Mr. Morse, who was so overjoyed that he could
scarcely find his voice to thank her. When at last he spoke, it was to
promise