“Soon after we commenced together to take portraits, causing a glass building to be constructed for that purpose on the roof of the University.  As our experiments had caused us considerable expense, we made a charge to those who sat for us to defray this expense.  Professor Draper’s other duties calling him away from the experiments, except as to their bearing on some philosophical investigations which he pursued with great ingenuity and success, I was left to pursue the artistic results of the process, as more in accordance with my profession.  My expenses had been great, and for some time, five or six months, I pursued the taking of portraits by the Daguerreotype as a means of reimbursing these expenses.  After this object had been attained, I abandoned the practice to give my exclusive attention to the Telegraph, which required all my time.”

Before leaving the subject of the Daguerreotype, in which, as I have shown, Morse was a pioneer in this country, it will be interesting to note that he took the first group photograph of a college class.  This was of the surviving members of his own class of 1810, who returned to New Haven for their thirtieth reunion in 1840.

It was not until August of the year 1839 that definite news of the failure of the Russian agreement was received, and Morse, in a letter to Smith, of August 12, comments on this and on another serious blow to his hopes:—­

“I received yours of the 2d inst., and the paper accompanying it containing the notice of Mr. Chamberlain.  I had previously been apprised that my forebodings were true in regard to his fate....  Our enterprise abroad is destined to give us anxiety, if not to end in disappointment.

“I have just received a letter from M. Amyot, who was to have been my companion to Russia, and learn from him the unwelcome news that the Emperor has decided against the Telegraph....  The Emperor’s objections are, it seems, that ‘malevolence can easily interrupt the communication.’  M. Amyot scouts the idea, and writes that he refuted the objection to the satisfaction of the Baron, who, indeed, did not need the refutation for himself, for the whole matter was fully discussed between us when in Paris.  The Baron, I should judge from the tone of M. Amyot’s letter, was much disappointed, yet, as a faithful and obedient subject of one whose nay is nay, he will be cautious in so expressing himself as to be self-committed.

“Thus, my dear sir, prospects abroad look dark.  I turn with some faint hope to my own country again.  Will Congress do anything, or is my time and your generous zeal and pecuniary sacrifice to end only in disappointment?  If so, I can bear it for myself, but I feel it most keenly for those who have been engaged with me; for you, for the Messrs. Vail and Dr. Gale.  But I will yet hope.  I don’t know that our enterprise looks darker than Fulton’s once appeared.  There is no intrinsic difficulty; the depressing causes are extrinsic.  I hope to see you soon and talk over all our affairs.”