You will perceive, by the number of the “Panoplist” enclosed, that we are strangers neither to your works nor your character.  It has given me much pleasure as an American to make both more extensively known among my countrymen.

I have purchased several hundred of your spelling books for a charitable society to which I belong, and they have been dispersed in the new settlements in our country, where I hope they will do immediate good, besides creating a desire and demand for more.  It will ever give me pleasure to hear from you when convenient.  Letters left at Mr. Taylor’s will find me.

I herewith send you two or three pamphlets and a copy of the last edition of my “American Gazetteer” which I pray you to accept as a small token of the high respect and esteem with which I am

Your friend,
J. MORSE.

Young Morse now settled down to serious work as the following extracts will show, which I set down without further comment, passing rapidly over the next few years.  He was, however, not entirely absorbed in his books but still longed for the pleasures of the chase:—­

“May 13, 1807.  Just now I asked Mr. Twining to let me go a-gunning for this afternoon.  He told me you had expressly forbidden it and he therefore could not.  Now I should wish to go once in a while, for I always intend to be careful.  I have no amusement now in the vacation, and it would gratify me very much if you would consent to let me go once in a while.  I suppose you would tell me that my books ought to be my amusement.  I cannot study all the time and I need some exercise.  If I walk, that is no amusement, and if I wish to play ball or anything else, I have no one to play with.  Please to write me an answer as soon as” possible.

June 7, 1807.

MY DEAR PARENTS,—­I hope you will excuse my not writing you sooner when I inform you that my time is entirely taken up with my studies.

In the morning I must rise at five o’clock to attend prayers and, immediately after, recitation; then I must breakfast and begin to study from eight o’clock till eleven; then recite my forenoon’s lesson which takes me an hour.

At twelve I must study French till one, which is dinner-time.  Directly after dinner I must recite French to Monsieur Value till two o’clock, then begin to study my afternoon lesson and recite it at five.  Immediately after recitation I must study another French lesson to recite at seven in the evening; come home at nine o’clock and study my morning’s lesson until ten, eleven, and sometimes twelve o’clock, and by that tine I am prepared to sleep....  You see now I have enough to do, my hands as full as can be, not five minutes’ time to take recreation.  I am determined to study and, thus far, have not missed a single word.  The students call me by the nickname of “Geography.”

“June 18, 1807. Last week I went to Mr. Beers and saw a set of Montaigne’s ‘Essays’ in French in eight volumes, duodecimo, handsomely bound in calf and gilt, for two dollars.  The reason they are so cheap is because they are wicked and bad books for me or anybody else to read.  I got them because they were cheap, and have exchanged them for a handsome English edition of ‘Gil Blas’; price, $4.50.”