“I have just seen Mr. Stephen Van Rensselaer, who you know was at college with us, and with whom I was intimate.  He was very glad to see me and calls on me every day while I am painting.  He keeps his carriage and horses and is in the first circles here.  I ride out occasionally with him; shall begin his portrait next week.”

Like a breath of fresh air, in all the heat and dust of these troublous times, comes this request from his gentle mother in a letter of May 8, 1812:—­

“Miss C. Dexter requests the favor of you to take a sketch of the face of Mr. Southey and send it her.  He is a favorite writer with her and she has a great desire to see the style of his countenance.  If you can get it, enclose it in a genteel note to her with a brief account of him, his age and character, etc.”

The next letter of May 25, 1812, is from Morse to his parents.

“I have told you in former letters that my lodgings are at 82 Great Titchfield Street and that my room-mate is Leslie, the young man who is so much talked of in Philadelphia.  We have lived together since December and have not, as yet, had a falling out.  I find his thoughts of art agree perfectly with my own.  He is enthusiastic and so am I, and we have not time, scarcely, to think of anything else; everything we do has a reference to art, and all our plans are for our mutual advancement in it.  Our amusements are walking, occasionally attending the theatres, and the company of Mr. Allston and a few other gentlemen, consisting of three or four painters and poets.  We meet by turn at each other’s rooms and converse and laugh.

“Mr. Allston is our most intimate friend and companion.  I can’t feel too grateful to Him for his attentions to me; he calls every day and superintends all we are doing.  When I am at a stand and perplexed in some parts of the picture, he puts me right and encourages me to proceed by praising those parts which he thinks good, but he is faithful and always tells me when anything is bad.

“It is a mortifying thing sometimes to me, when I have been painting all day very hard and begin to be pleased with what I have done, on showing it to Mr. Allston, with the expectation of praise, and not only of praise but a score of ‘excellents,’ ‘well dones,’ and ‘admirables’; I say it is mortifying to hear him after a long silence say:  ’Very bad, sir; that is not flesh, it is mud, sir; it is painted with brick dust and clay.’

“I have felt sometimes ready to dash my palette knife through it and to feel at the moment quite angry with him; but a little reflection restores me; I see that Mr. Allston is not a flatterer but a friend, and that really to improve I must see my faults.  What he says after this always puts me in good humor again.  He tells me to put a few flesh tints here, a few gray ones there, and to clear up such and such a part by such and such colors.  And not only that, but takes the palette and brushes and shows me how, and in this way he assists me.  I think it one of the greatest blessings that I am under his eye.  I don’t know how many errors I might have fallen into if it had not been for his attentions....