elegraph? The idea would
not down; yet he must live; and there were his three motherless children
in New Haven. He would have to go on painting as well as he could and
develop his telegraph in what time he could spare. His brothers, Richard
and Sidney, were both living in New York and they did what they could
for him, giving him a room in a building they had erected at Nassau and
Beekman Streets. Morse's lot at this time was made all the harder by
hopes raised and dashed to earth again. Congress had voted money for
mural paintings for the rotunda of the Capitol. The artists were to be
selected by a committee of which John Quincy Adams was chairman. Morse
expected a commission for a part of the work, for his standing at that
time was second to that of no American artist, save Allston, and Allston
he knew had declined to paint any of the pictures and had spoken in his
favor. Adams, however, as chairman of the committee was of the opinion
that the pictures should be done by foreign artists, there being no
Americans available, he thought, of sufficiently high standing to
execute the work with fitting distinction. This opinion, publicly
expressed, infuriated James Fenimore Cooper, Morse's friend, and Cooper
wrote an attack on Adams in the New York Evening Post, but without
signing it. Supposing Morse to be the author of this article, Adams
summarily struck his name from the list of artists who were to be
employed.

How very poor Morse was about this time is indicated by a story
afterwards told by General Strother of Virginia, who was one of his
pupils:

I engaged to become Morse's pupil and subsequently went to New York
and found him in a room in University Place. He had three or four other
pupils and I soon found that our professor had very little patronage.

I paid my fifty dollars for one-quarter's instruction. Morse was a
faithful teacher and took as much interest in our progress as--more
indeed than--we did ourselves. But he was very poor. I remember that,
when my second quarter's pay was due, my remittance did not come as
expected, and one day the professor came in and said, courteously: "Well
Strother, my boy, how are we off for money?"

"Why professor," I answered, "I am sorry to say that I have been
disappointed, but I expect a remittance next week."

"Next week," he repeated sadly, "I shall be dead by that time."

"Dead, sir?"

"Yes, dead by starvation."

I was distressed and astonished. I said hurriedly: