JANUARY 1, 1826--DECEMBER 5, 1829
Success of his lectures, the first of the kind in the United States.--
Difficulties of his position as leader.--Still longing for a home.--Very
busy but in good health.--Death of his father.--Estimates of Dr. Morse.--
Letters to his mother.--Wishes to go to Europe again.--Delivers address
at first anniversary of National Academy of Design.--Professor Dana
lectures on electricity.--Morse's study of the subject.--Moves to No. 13
Murray Street.--Too busy to visit his family.--Death of his mother.--A
remarkable woman.--Goes to central New York.--A serious accident.--Moral
reflections.--Prepares to go to Europe.--Letter of John A. Dix.--Sails
for Liverpool.--Rough voyage.--Liverpool.
January 1, 1826
MY DEAR PARENTS,--I wish you all a Happy New Year! Kiss my little ones as
a New Year's present from me, which must answer until I visit them, when
I shall bring them each a present if I hear good accounts from them....
The new year brings with it many painful reflections to me. When I
consider what a difference a year has accomplished in my situation; that
one on whom I depended so much for domestic happiness at this time last
year gave me the salutations of the season, and now is gone where years
are unknown; and when I think how mysteriously I am separated from my
little family, and that duty may keep me I know not how much longer in
this solitary state, I have much that makes the present season far from
being a Happy New Year to me. But, mysterious as things seem in regard to
the future, I know that all will be ordered right, and I have a great
deal to say of mercy in the midst of judgment, and a thousand unmerited
blessings with all my troubles.
But why do I talk of troubles? My cup is overflowing with blessings. As
far as outward circumstances are concerned, Providence seems to be
opening an honorable and useful course to me. Oh! that I may be able to
bear prosperity, if it is his will to bestow it, or be denied it if not
accompanied with his blessing....
I am much engaged in my lectures, have completed two, nearly, and hope to
get through the four in season for my turn at the Athenæum. These
lectures are of great importance to me, for, if well done, they place me
alone among the artists; I being the only one who has as yet written a
course of lectures in our country. Time bestowed on them is not,
therefore, misspent, for they will acquire me reputation which will yield
wealth, as mother, I hope, will live to see.
"_January 15, 1826._ On this day I seem to have the only moment in the
week in which I can write you, for I am almost overwhelmed by the
multitude of cares that crowd upon me.... I find that the path of duty,
though plain, is not without its roughness. I can say but in one word
that the Association of Artists, of whom I am president, after
negotiations of some weeks with the Academy of Fine Arts to come into it
on terms of mutual benefit, find their efforts unavailing, and have
separated and formed a new academy to be called, probably, the National
Academy of the Arts of Design. I am at its head, but the cares and
responsibility which devolve on me in consequence are more than a balance
for the honor. The battle is yet to be fought for the need of public
favor, and were it not that the entire and perfect justness of our cause
is clear to me in every point of view, I should retire from a contest
which would merely serve to rouse up all the 'old Adam' to no profit; but
the cause of the artists seems, under Providence, to be, in some degree,
confided to me, and I cannot shrink from the cares and troubles at
present put upon me. I have gone forward thus far, asking direction from
above, and, in looking around me, I feel that I am in the path of duty.
May I be kept in it and be preserved from the temptations, the various
and multiplied and complicated temptations, to which I know I shall be
exposed. In every step thus far I feel an approving conscience; there is
none I could wish to retrace....
"I fear you will think I have but few thoughts for you all at home, and
my dear little ones in particular. I do think of them, though, very
often, with many a longing to have a home for them under a parent's roof,
and all my efforts now are tending distantly to that end; but when I
shall ever have a home of my own, or whether it will ever be, I know not.
The necessity for a second connection on their account seems pressing,
but I cannot find my heart ready for it. I am occasionally rallied on the
subject, but the suggestion only reminds me of her I have lost, and a
tear is quite as ready to appear as a smile; or, if I can disguise it, I
feel a pang within that shows me the wound is not yet healed. It is
eleven months since she has gone, but it seems but yesterday."
"_April 18, 1826._ I don't know but you will think I have forgotten how
to write letters, and I believe this is the first I have written for six
weeks.
"The pressure of my lectures became very great towards the close of them,
and I was compelled to bend my whole attention to their completion. I did
not expect, when I delivered my first, that I should be able to give more
than two, but the importance of going through seemed greater as I
advanced, and I was strengthened to accomplish the whole number, and, if
I can judge from various indications, I think I have been successful. My
audience, consisting of the most fashionable and literary society in the
city, regularly increased at each successive lecture, and at the last it
was said that I had the largest audience ever assembled in the room.
"I am now engaged on Lafayette in expectation of completing it for our
exhibition in May, after which time I hope I shall be able to see you for
a day or two in New Haven. I long to see you all, and those dear children
often make me feel anxious, and I am often tempted to break away and have
a short look at them, but I am tied down here and cannot move at present.
All that I am doing has some reference to their interest; they are
constantly on my mind.
"... My health was never better with all my intense application, sitting
in my chair from seven in the morning until twelve or one o'clock the
next morning, with only about an hour's intermission. I have felt no
permanent inconvenience. On Saturday night, generally, I have felt
exceedingly nervous, so that my whole body and limbs would shake, but
resting on the Sabbath seemed to give me strength for the next week.
Since my mind is relieved from my lectures I have felt new life and
spirits, and feel strong to accomplish anything."
"_May 10, 18S6._ I have just heard from mother and feel anxious about
father. Nothing but the most imperious necessity prevents my coming
immediately to New Haven; indeed, as it is, I will try and break away
sometime next week, if possible, and pass one day with you, but how to do
it without detriment to my business I don't know....
"I have longed for some time for a little respite, but, like our good
father, all his sons seem destined for most busy stations in society, and
constant exertions, not for themselves alone, but for the public
benefit."
Whether this promised visit to New Haven was paid or not is not recorded,
but it is to be hoped that it was made possible, for the good husband and
father, the faithful worker for the betterment of mankind, was called to
his well-earned rest on the 9th of June, 1826.
Of him Dr. John Todd said, "Dr. Morse lived before his time and was in
advance of his generation." President Dwight of Yale found him "as full
of resources as an egg is of meat"; and Daniel Webster spoke of him as
"always thinking, always writing, always talking, always acting." Mr.
Prime thus sums up his character: "He was a man of genius, not content
with what had been and was, but originating and with vast executive
ability combining the elements to produce great results. To him more than
to any other one man may be attributed the impulses given in his day to
religion and learning in the United States. A polished gentleman in his
manners; the companion, correspondent, and friend of the most eminent men
in Church and State; honored at the early age of thirty-four with the
degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University of Edinburgh, Scotland;
sought by scholars and statesmen from abroad as one of the foremost men
of his country and time."
The son must have felt keenly the loss of his father so soon after the
death of his wife. The whole family was a singularly united one, each
member depending on the others for counsel and advice, and the father,
who was but sixty-five when he died, was still vigorous in mind, although
of delicate constitution.
Later in this year Morse managed to spend some time in New Haven, and he
persuaded his mother to seek rest and recuperation in travel,
accompanying her as far as Boston and writing to her there on his return
to New Haven.
"_September 20, 1826._ I arrived safely home after leaving you yesterday
and found that neither the house nor the folks had run away.... Persevere
in your travels, mother, as long as you think it does you good, and tell
Dick to brush up his best bows and bring home some lady to grace the now
desolate mansion."
On November 9, 1826, he writes to his mother from New York:--
"Don't think I have forgotten you all at home because I have been so
remiss in writing you lately. I feel guilty, however, in not stealing
some little time just to write you one line. I acknowledge my fault, so
please forgive me and I will be a _better boy_ in future.
"The fact is I have been engaged for the last three days during all my
leisure moments in something unusual with me,--I mean _electioneering_.
'Oh! what a sad boy!' mother will say. 'There he is leaving everything at
sixes and sevens, and driving through the streets, and busying himself
about those _poison politics_.' Not quite so fast, however.
"I have not neglected my own affairs, as you will learn one of these
days. I have an historical picture to paint, which will occupy me for
some time, for a proprietor of a steamboat which is building in
Philadelphia to be the most splendid ever built. He has engaged
historical pictures of Allston, Vanderlyn, Sully, and myself, and
landscapes of the principal landscape painters, for a gallery on board
the boat. I consider this as a new and noble channel for the
encouragement of painting, and in such an enterprise and in such company
I shall do my best.
"What do you think of sparing me for about one year to visit Paris and
Rome to finish what I began when in Europe before? My education as a
painter is incomplete without it, and the time is rapidly going away when
my age will render it impossible to profit by such studies, even if I
should be able, at a future time, to visit Europe again.... I can,
perhaps, leave my dear little ones at their age better than if they were
more advanced, and, as my views are ultimately to benefit them, I think
no one will accuse me of neglecting them. If they do, they know but
little of my feelings towards them."
The mother's answer to this letter has not been preserved, but whether
she dissuaded him from going at that time, or whether other reasons
prevented him, the fact is that he did not start on the voyage to Europe
(the return trip proving so momentous to himself and to the world) until
exactly three years later.
I shall pass rapidly over these intervening three years. They were years
of hard work, but of work rewarded by material success and increasing
honor in the community.
On May 8, 1827, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the National
Academy of Design, Morse, its president, delivered an address before a
brilliant audience in the chapel of Columbia College. This address was
considered so remarkable that, at the request of the Academy, it was
published in pamphlet form. It called forth a sharp review in the "North
American," which voiced the opinions of those who were hostile to the new
Academy, and who considered the term "National" little short of arrogant.
Morse replied to this attack in a masterly manner in the "Journal of
Commerce," and this also was published in pamphlet form and ended the
controversy.
In the year 1827, Professor James Freeman Dana, of Columbia College,
delivered a series of lectures on the subject of electricity at the New
York Athenæum. Professor Dana was an enthusiast in the study of that
science, which, at that time, was but in its infancy, and he foresaw
great and beneficial results to mankind from this mysterious force when
it should become more fully understood.
Morse, already familiar with the subject from his experiments with
Professor Silliman in New Haven, took a deep interest in these lectures,
and he and Professor Dana became warm friends. The latter, on his side a
great admirer of the fine arts, spent many hours in the studio of the
artist, discussing with him the two subjects which were of absorbing
interest to them both, art and electricity. In this way Morse became
perfectly familiar with the latest discoveries in electrical science, so
that when, a few years later, his grand conception of a simple and
practicable means of harnessing this mystic agent to the uses of mankind
took form in his brain, it found a field already prepared to receive it.
I wish to lay particular emphasis on this point because, in later years,
when his claims as an inventor were bitterly assailed in the courts and
in scientific circles, it was asserted that he knew nothing whatever of
the science of electricity at the time of his invention, and that all its
essential features were suggested to him by others.
In the year 1828, Morse again changed his quarters, moving to a suite of
rooms at No. 13 Murray Street, close to Broadway, for which he paid a
"great rent," $500, and on May 6 of that year he writes to his mother:
"Ever since I left you at New Haven I have been over head and ears in
arrangements of every kind. It is the busiest time of the whole year as
it regards the National Academy. We have got through the arrangement of
our exhibition and yesterday opened it to the guests of the Academy. We
had the first people in the city, ladies and gentlemen, thronging the
room all day, and the voice of all seemed to be--'It is the best
exhibition of the kind that has been seen in the city.'
"I am now arranging my rooms; they are very fine ones. I shall be through
in a few days, and then I hope to be able to come up and see you, for I
feel very anxious about you, my dear mother. I do most sincerely
sympathize with you in your troubles and long to come up and take some of
the care and burden from you, and will do it as soon as my affairs here
can be arranged so that I can leave them without serious detriment to
them.... What a siege you must have had with your _help_, as it is most
strangely called in New Haven. I am too aristocratic for such doings as
_help_ would make those who live in New Haven endure. Ardently as I am
attached to New Haven the plague of _help_ will probably always prevent
my living there again, for I would not put up with 'the world turned
upside down,' and therefore should give offense to their _helpinesses_,
and so lead a very uncomfortable life."
From this our suspicion is strengthened that the servant question belongs
to no time or country, but is and always has been a perennial and
ubiquitous problem.
"_May 11, 1888._ I feel very anxious about you, dear mother. I heard
through Mr. Van Rensselaer that you were better, and I hope that you will
yet see many good days on earth and be happy in the affection of your
children and friends here, before you go, a little before them, to join
those in heaven."
While expressing anxiety about his mother's health, he could not have
considered her condition critical, for on the 18th of May he writes
again:--
"I did hope so to make my arrangements as to have been with you in New
Haven yesterday and to-day, but I am so situated as to be unable to leave
the city without great detriment to my business.... Unless, therefore,
there is something of pressing necessity, prudence would dictate to me to
take advantage of this season, which has generally been the most
profitable to others in the profession, and see if I cannot get my share
of something to do. It is a great struggle with me to know what I ought
to do. Your situation and that of the family draw me to New Haven; the
state of my finances keeps me here. I will come, however, if, on the
whole, you think it best."
Again are the records silent as to whether the visit was paid or not, but
his anxiety was well founded, for his mother's appointed time had come,
and just ten days later, on the 28th of May, 1828, she died at the age of
sixty-two.
Thus within the space of three years the hand of death had removed the
three beings whom Morse loved best. His mother, while, as we have seen,
stern and uncompromising in her Puritan principles, yet possessed the
faculty of winning the love as well as the respect of her family and
friends. Dr. Todd said of her home: "An orphan myself and never having a
home, I have gone away from Dr. Morse's house in tears, feeling that such
a home must be more like heaven than anything of which I could conceive."
Mr. Prime, in his biography of Morse, thus pays tribute to her:--
"Two persons more unlike in temperament, it is said, could not have been
united in love and marriage than the parents of Morse. The husband was
sanguine, impulsive, resolute, regardless of difficulties and danger. She
was calm, judicious, cautious, and reflecting. And she, too, had a will
of her own. One day she was expressing to one of the parish her intense
displeasure with the treatment her husband had received, when Dr. Morse
gently laid his hand upon her shoulder and said, 'My dear, you know we
must throw the mantle of charity over the imperfections of others.' And
she replied with becoming spirit, 'Mr. Morse, charity is not a fool.'"
In the summer of 1828, Morse spent some time in central New York,
visiting relatives and painting portraits when the occasion offered. He
thus describes a narrow escape from serious injury, or even death, in a
letter to his brother Sidney, dated Utica, August 17, 1828:--
"In coming from Whitesboro on Friday I met with an accident and a most
narrow escape with my life. The horse, which had been tackled into the
wagon, was a vicious horse and had several times run away, to the danger
of Mr. Dexter's life and others of the family. I was not aware of this or
I should not have consented to go with him, much less to drive him
myself.
"I was alone in the wagon with my baggage, and the horse went very well
for about a mile, when he gradually quickened his pace and then set out,
in spite of all check, on the full run. I kept him in the road,
determined to let him run himself tired as the only safe alternative; but
just as I came in sight of a piece of the road which had been concealed
by an angle, there was a heavy wagon which I must meet so soon that, in
order to avoid it, I must give it the whole road.
"This being very narrow, and the ditches and banks on each side very
rough, I instantly made up my mind to a serious accident. As well as the
velocity of the horse would allow me, however, I kept him on the side,
rough as it was, for about a quarter of a mile pretty steadily,
expecting, however, to upset every minute; when all at once I saw before
me an abrupt, narrow, deep gully into which the wheels on one side were
just upon the point of going down. It flashed across me in an instant
that, if I could throw the horse down into the ditch, the wheels of the
wagon might, perhaps, rest equipoised on each side, and, perhaps, break
the horse loose from the wagon.
"I pulled the rein and accomplished the object in part. The sudden plunge
of the horse into the gully broke him loose from the wagon, but it at the
same time turned one of the fore wheels into the gully, which upset the
wagon and threw me forwards at the moment when the horse threw up his
heels, just taking off my hat and leaving me in the bottom of the gully.
I fell on my left shoulder, and, although muddied from head to foot, I
escaped without any injury whatever; I was not even jarred painfully. I
found my shoulder a little bruised, my wrist very slightly scratched, and
yesterday was a little, and but very little, stiffened in my limbs, and
to-day have not the slightest feeling of bruise about me, but think I
feel better than I have for a long time. Indeed, my health is entirely
restored; the riding and country air have been the means of restoring me.
I have great cause of thankfulness for so much mercy and for such special
preserving care."
[Illustration: ELIZABETH A. MORSE
Painted by Morse]
The historian or the biographer who is earnestly desirous of presenting
an absolutely truthful picture of men and of events is aided in his task
by taking into account the character of the men who have made history. He
must ask the question: "Is it conceivable that this man could have acted
thus and so under such and such circumstances when his character, as
ultimately revealed through the perspective of time, has been
established? Could Washington and Lincoln, for example, have been
actuated by the motives attributed to them by their enemies?"
Like all men who have become shining marks in the annals of history,
Morse could not hope to escape calumny, and in later years he was accused
of actions, and motives were imputed to him, which it becomes the duty of
his biographer to disprove on the broad ground of moral impossibility.
Among his letters and papers are many rough drafts of thoughts and
observations on many subjects, interlined and annotated. Some were
afterwards elaborated into letters, articles, or lectures; others seem to
have been the thought of the moment, which he yet deemed worth writing
down, and which, perhaps better than anything else, reveal the true
character of the man.
The following was written by him in pencil on Sunday, September 6, 1829,
at Cooperstown, New York:--
"That temptations surround us at every moment is too evident to require
proof. If they cease from without they still act upon us from within
ourselves, and our most secret thoughts may as surely be drawn from the
path of duty by secret temptation, by the admission of evil suggestions,
and they will affect our characters as injuriously as those more palpable
and tangible temptations that attack our sense.
"This life is a state of discipline; a school in which to form character.
There is not an event that comes to our knowledge, not a sentence that we
read, not a person with whom we converse, not an act of our lives, in
short, not a thought which we conceive, but is acting upon and moulding
that character into a shape of good or evil; and, however unconscious we
may be of the fact, a thought, casually conceived in the solitariness and
silence and darkness of midnight, may so modify and change the current of
our future conduct that a blessing or a curse to millions may flow from
it.
"All our thoughts are mysteriously connected with good or evil. Their
very habits, too, like the habits of our actions, are strengthened by
indulgence, and, according as we indulge the evil or the good, our
characters will partake of the moral character of each. But actions
proceed from thoughts; we act as we think. Why should we, then, so
cautiously guard our actions from impropriety while we give a loose rein
to our thoughts, which so certainly, sooner or later, produce their
fruits in our actions?
"God in his wisdom has separated at various distances sin and the
consequence of sin. In some instances we see a sin instantly followed by
its fruits, as of revenge by murder. In others we see weeks and months
and years, aye, and ages, too, elapse before the fruits of a single act,
the result, perhaps, of a single thought, are seen in all their varieties
of evil.
"How long ere the fruits of one sin in Paradise will cease to be visible
in the moral universe?
"If this reasoning is correct, I shall but cheat myself in preserving a
good moral outward appearance to others if every thought of the heart, in
the most secret retirement, is not carefully watched and checked and
guarded from evil; since the casual indulgence of a single evil thought
in secret may be followed, long after that thought is forgotten by me,
and when, perhaps, least expected, by overt acts of evil.
"Who, then, shall say that in those pleasures in which we indulge, and
which by many are called, and apparently are, innocent, there are not
laid the seeds of many a corrupt affection? Who shall say that my
innocent indulgence at the card table or at the theatre, were I inclined
to visit them, may not produce, if not in me a passion for gaming or for
low indulgence, yet in others may encourage these views to their ruin?
"Besides, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners,' and even places
less objectionable are studiously to be avoided. The soul is too precious
to be thus exposed.
"Where then is our remedy? In Christ alone. 'Cleanse thou me from secret
faults. Search me, O God, and know my thoughts; try me and know my ways
and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way which is
everlasting.'"
This is but one of many expressions of a similar character which are to
be found in the letters and notes, and which are illuminating.
Morse was now making ready for another trip to Europe. He had hoped, when
he returned home in 1815, to stay but a year or two on this side and then
to go back and continue his artistic education, which he by no means
considered complete, in France and Italy. We have seen how one
circumstance after another interfered to prevent the realization of this
plan, until now, after the lapse of fourteen years, he found it possible.
His wife and his parents were dead; his children were being carefully
cared for by relatives, the daughter Susan by her mother's sister, Mrs.
Pickering, in Concord, New Hampshire, and the boys by their uncle,
Richard C. Morse, who was then happily married and living in the family
home in New Haven.
The National Academy of Design was now established on a firm footing and
could spare his guiding hand for a few years. He had saved enough money
to defray his expenses on a strictly economical basis, but, to make
assurance doubly sure, he sought and received commissions from his
friends and patrons in America for copies of famous paintings, or for
original works of his own, so that he could sail with a clear conscience
as regarded his finances.
His friends were uniformly encouraging in furthering his plan, and he
received many letters of cordial good wishes and of introduction to
prominent men abroad. I shall include the following from John A. Dix, at
that time a captain in the army, but afterwards a general, and Governor
of New York, who, although he had been an unsuccessful suitor for the
hand of Miss Walker, Morse's wife, bore no ill-will towards his rival,
but remained his firm friend to the end:--
COOPERSTOWN, 27th October, 1829.
MY DEAR SIR,--I have only time to say that I have been absent in an
adjacent county and fear there is not time to procure a letter for you to
Mr. Rives before the 1st. I have written to Mr. Van Buren and he will
doubtless send you a letter before the 8th. Therefore make arrangements
to have it sent after you if you sail on the 1st.
I need not say I shall be very happy to hear from you during your
sojournment abroad. Especially tell me what your impressions are when you
turn from David's picture with Romulus and Tatius in the foreground, and
Paul Veronese's Marriage at Cana directly opposite, at the entrance of
the picture gallery in the Louvre.
We are all well and all desire to be remembered. I have only time to add
my best wishes for your happiness and prosperity.
Yours truly and constantly,
JOHN A. DIX.
The Mr. Rives mentioned in the letter was at that time our Minister to
France, and the Mr. Van Buren was Martin Van Buren, then Secretary of
State in President Jackson's Cabinet, and afterwards himself President of
the United States.
The following is from the pencilled draft of a letter or the beginning of
a diary which was not finished, but ends abruptly:--
"On the 8th November, 1829, I embarked from New York in the ship
Napoleon, Captain Smith, for Liverpool. The Napoleon is one of those
splendid packets, which have been provided by the enterprise of our
merchants, for the accommodation of persons whose business or pleasure
requires a visit to Europe or America.
"Precisely at the appointed hour, ten o'clock, the steamboat with the
passengers and their baggage left the Whitehall dock for our gallant
ship, which was lying to above the city, heading up the North River,
careening to the brisk northwest gale, and waiting with apparent
impatience for us, like a spirited horse curvetting under the rein of his
master, and waiting but his signal to bound away. A few moments brought
us to her side, and a few more saw the steamboat leave us, and the sad
farewells to relatives and friends, who had thus far accompanied us, were
mutually exchanged by the waving of hands and of handkerchiefs. The
'Ready about,' and soon after the 'Mainsail haul' of the pilot were
answered by the cheering 'Ho, heave, ho' of the sailors, and, with the
fairest wind that ever blew, we fast left the spires and shores of the
great city behind us. In two hours we discharged our pilot to the south
of Sandy Hook, with his pocket full of farewell letters to our friends,
and then stood on our course for England.
"Four days brought us to the Banks of Newfoundland, one third of our
passage. Many of our passengers were sanguine in their anticipations of
our making the shortest passage ever known, and, had our subsequent
progress been as great as at first, we should doubtless have accomplished
the voyage in thirteen days, but calms and head winds for three days on
the Banks have frustrated our expectations.
"There is little that is interesting in the incidents of a voyage. The
indescribable listlessness of seasickness, the varied state of feeling
which changes with the wind and weather, have often been described. These
I experienced in all their force. From the time we left the Banks of
Newfoundland we had a continued succession of head winds, and when within
one fair day's sail of land, we were kept off by severe gales directly
ahead for five successive days and nights, during which time the uneasy
motion of the ship deprived us all of sleep, except in broken intervals
of an half-hour at a time. We neither saw nor spoke any vessel until the
evening of the ----, when we descried through the darkness a large vessel
on an opposite course from ourselves; we first saw her cabin lights. It
was blowing a gale of wind before which we were going on our own course
at the rate of eleven miles an hour. It was, of course, impossible to
speak her, but, to let her know that she had company on the wide ocean,
we threw up a rocket which for splendor of effect surpassed any that I
had ever seen on shore. It was thrown from behind the mizzenmast, over
which it shot arching its way over the main and foremasts, illuminating
every sail and rope, and then diving into the water, piercing the wave,
it again shot upwards and vanished in a loud report. To our companion
ship the effect must have been very fine.
"The sea is often complained of for its monotony, and yet there is great
variety in the appearance of the sea."
Here it ends, but we learn a little more of the voyage and the landing in
England from a letter to a cousin in America, written in Liverpool, on
December 5, 1829:--
"I arrived safely in England yesterday after a long, but, on the whole,
pleasant, passage of twenty-six days. I write you from the inn (the
King's Arms Hotel) at which I put up eighteen years ago. This inn is the
one at which Professor Silliman stayed when he travelled in England, and
which he mentions in his travels. The old Frenchman whom he mentions I
well remember when I was here before. I enquired for him and am told he
is still living, but I have not seen him.
"There is a large black man, a waiter in the house, who is quite a
polished man in his manners, and an elderly white man, with white hair,
who looks so respectable and dignified that one feels a little awkward at
first in ordering him to do this or that service; and the chambermaids
look so venerable and matronly that to ask them for a pitcher of water
seems almost rude to them. But I am in a land where domestic servants are
the best in the world. No servant aspires to a higher station, but feels
a pride in making himself the first in that station. I notice this, for
our own country presents a melancholy contrast in this particular."
Here follows a description of the voyage, and he continues:--
"Yesterday we anchored off the Floating Light, sixteen miles from the
city, unable to reach the dock on account of the wind, but the
post-office steamboat (or steamer, as they call them here) came to us
from Liverpool to take the letter-bags, and I with other passengers got
on board, and at twelve o'clock I once more placed my foot on English
ground.
"The weather is true English weather, thick, smoky, and damp. I can see
nothing of the general appearance of the city. The splendid docks, which
were building when I was here before, are now completed and extend along
the river. They are really splendid; everything about them is solid and
substantial, of stone and iron, and on so large a scale.
"I have passed my baggage through the custom-house, and on Monday I
proceed on my journey to London through Birmingham and Oxford. Miss
Leslie, a sister of my friend Leslie of London, is my _compagnon de
voyage_. She is a woman of fine talents and makes my journey less tedious
and irksome than it would otherwise be.... I have a long journey before
me yet ere I reach Rome, where I intended to be by Christmas Day, but my
long voyage will probably defeat my intention."