“‘Would ten dollars be of any service?’

“‘Ten dollars would save my life; that is all it would do.’

“I paid the money, all that I had, and we dined together.  It was a modest meal but good, and, after he had finished, he said:—­

“’This is my first meal for twenty-four hours.  Strother, don’t be an artist.  It means beggary.  Your life depends upon people who know nothing of your art and care nothing for you.  A house-dog lives better, and the very sensitiveness that stimulates an artist to work keeps him alive to suffering.’”

Another artist describes the conditions in 1841 in the following words:—­

“In the spring of 18411 was searching for a studio in which to set up my easel.  My ‘house-hunting’ ended at the New York University, where I found what I wanted in one of the turrets of that stately edifice.  When I had fixed my choice, the janitor, who accompanied me in my examination of the rooms, threw open a door on the opposite side of the hall and invited me to enter.  I found myself in what was evidently an artist’s studio, but every object in it bore indubitable signs of unthrift and neglect.  The statuettes, busts, and models of various kinds were covered with dust and cobwebs; dusty canvases were faced to the wall, and stumps of brushes and scraps of paper littered the floor.  The only signs of industry consisted of a few masterly crayon drawings, and little luscious studies of color pinned to the wall.

“‘You will have an artist for a neighbor,’ said the janitor, ’though he is not here much of late; he seems to be getting rather shiftless; he is wasting his time over some silly invention, a machine by which he expects to send messages from one place to another.  He is a very good painter, and might do well if he would only stick to his business; but, Lord!’ he added with a sneer of contempt, ’the idea of telling by a little streak of lightning what a body is saying at the other end of it.’

“Judge of my astonishment when he informed me that the ’shiftless individual’ whose foolish waste of time so much excited his commiseration, was none other than the President of the National Academy of Design—­the most exalted position, in my youthful artistic fancy, it was possible for mortal to attain—­S.F.B.  Morse, since better known as the inventor of the Electric Telegraph.  But a little while after this his fame was flashing through the world, and the unbelievers who voted him insane were forced to confess that there was, at least, ’method in his madness.’”

The spring and summer of 1841 wore away and nothing was accomplished.  On August 16 Morse writes to Smith:—­

“Our Telegraph matters are in a situation to do none of us any good, unless some understanding can be entered into among the proprietors.  I have recently received a letter from Mr. Isaac N. Coffin, from Washington, with a commendatory letter from Hon. R. McClellan, of the House.  Mr. Coffin proposes to take upon himself the labor of urging through the two houses the bill relating to my Telegraph, which you know has long been before Congress.  He will press it and let his compensation depend on his success.”