circuit and produce his conventional signs. He did not choose the most appropriate place for this operation, for his sister-in-law rather pathetically remarked: "He melted the lead which he used over the fire in the grate of my front parlor, and, in his operation of casting the type, he spilled some of the heated metal upon the drugget, or loose carpeting, before the fireplace, and upon a flagbottomed chair upon which his mould was placed."

He was also handicapped by illness just after his return, as we learn from the following letter to his friend Fenimore Cooper. In this letter he also makes some interesting comments on New York and American affairs, but, curiously enough, he says nothing of his invention:

"February 21, 1833. Don't scold at me. I don't deserve a scolding if you knew all, and I do if you don't know all, for I have not written to you since I landed in November. What with severe illness for several weeks after my arrival, and the accumulation of cares consequent on so long an absence from home, I have been overwhelmed and distracted by calls upon my time for a thousand things that pressed upon me for immediate attention; and so I have put off and put off what I have been longing (I am ashamed to say for weeks if not months) to do, I mean to write to you.

"The truth is, my dear sir, I have so much to say that I know not where to commence. I throw myself on your indulgence, and, believing you will forgive me, I commence without further apology.

"First, as to things at home. New York is improved, as the word goes, wonderfully. You will return to a strange city; you will not recognize many of your acquaintances among the old buildings; brand-new buildings, stores, and houses are taking the place of the good, staid, modest houses of the early settlers. Improvement is all the rage, and houses and churchyards must be overthrown and upturned whenever the Corporation plough is set to work for the widening of a narrow, or the making of a new, street.

"I believe you sometimes have a fit of the blues. It is singular if you do not with your temperament. I confess to many fits of this disagreeable disorder, and I know nothing so likely to induce one as the finding, after an absence of some years from home, the great hour-hand of life sensibly advanced on all your former friends. What will be your sensations after six or seven years if mine are acute after three years' absence?

"I have not been much in society as yet. I have many visitations, but, until I clear off the accumulated rubbish of three years which lies upon my table, I must decline seeing much of my friends. I have seen twice your sisters the Misses Delancy, and was prevented from being at their house last Friday evening by the severest snow-storm we have had this season. Our friends the Jays I have met several times, and have had much conversation with them about you and your delightful family. Mr. P.A. Jay is a member of the club, so I see him every Friday evening. Chancellor Kent also is a member, and both warm friends of yours….

"My time for ten or twelve days past has been occupied in answering a pamphlet of Colonel Trumbull, who came out for the purpose of justifying his opposition to measures which had been devised for uniting the two Academies. I send you the first copy hot from the press. There is a great deal to dishearten in the state of feeling, or rather state of no feeling, on the arts in this city. The only way I can keep up my spirits is by resolutely resisting all disposition to repine, and by fighting perseveringly against all the obstacles that hinder the progress of art.

"I have been told several times since my return that I was born one hundred years too soon for the arts in our country. I have replied that, if that be the case, I will try and make it but fifty. I am more and more persuaded that I have quite as much to do with the pen for the arts as the pencil, and if I can in my day so enlighten the public mind as to make the way easier for those that come after me, I don't know that I shall not have served the cause of the fine arts as effectively as by painting pictures which might be appreciated one hundred years after I am gone. If I am to be the Pioneer and am fitted for it, why should I not glory as much in felling trees and clearing away the rubbish as in showing the decorations suited to a more advanced state of cultivation?…

"You will certainly have the blues when you first arrive, but the longer you stay abroad the more severe will be the disease. Excuse my predictions…. The Georgia affair is settled after a fashion; not so the nullifiers; they are infatuated. Disagreeable as it will be, they will be put down with disgrace to them."

In another letter to Mr. Cooper, dated February 28, 1833, he writes in the same vein:—

"The South Carolina business is probably settled by this time by Mr. Clay's compromise bill, so that the legitimates of Europe may stop blowing their twopenny trumpets in triumph at our disunion. The same clashing of interests in Europe would have caused twenty years of war and torrents of bloodshed; with us it has caused three or four years of wordy war and some hundreds of gallons of ink; but no necks are broken, nor heads; all will be in statu ante bello in a few days….

"My dear sir, you are wanted at home. I want you to encourage me by your presence. I find the pioneer business has less of romance in the reality than in the description, and I find some tough stumps to pry up and heavy stones to roll out of the way, and I get exhausted and desponding, and I should like a little of your sinew to come to my aid at such times, as it was wont to come at the Louvre….

"There is nothing new in New York; everybody is driving after money, as usual, and there is an alarm of fire every half-hour, as usual, and the pigs have the freedom of the city, as usual; so that, in these respects at least, you will find New York as you left it, except that they are not the same people that are driving after money, nor the same houses burnt, nor the same pigs at large in the street…. You will all be welcomed home, but come prepared to find many, very many things in taste and manners different from your own good taste and manners. Good taste and good manners would not be conspicuous if all around possessed the same manners."

CHAPTER XXII

1833—1836

Still painting.—Thoughts on art.—Picture of the Louvre.—Rejection as painter of one of the pictures in the Capitol.—John Quincy Adams.—James Fenimore Cooper's article.—Death blow to his artistic ambition.— Washington Allston's letter.—Commission by fellow artists.—Definite abandonment of art.—Repayment of money advanced.—Death of Lafayette.— Religious controversies.—Appointed Professor in University of City of New York.—Description of first telegraphic instrument.—Successful experiments.—Relay.—Address in 1853.

It was impossible for the inventor during the next few years to devote himself entirely to the construction of a machine to test his theories, impatient though he must have been to put his ideas into practical form. His two brothers came nobly to his assistance, and did what lay in their power and according to their means to help him; but it was always repugnant to him to be under pecuniary obligations to any one, and, while gratefully accepting his brothers' help, he strained every nerve to earn the money to pay them back. We, therefore, find little or no reference in the letters of those years to his invention, and it was not until the year 1835 that he was able to make any appreciable progress towards the perfection of his telegraphic apparatus. The intervening years were spent in efforts to rouse an interest in