Growing Artist
"Attend to one thing at a time. The steady and undissipated attention to one object is the sure mark of a superior genius."
-Jedidiah Morse, father of Samuel F.B. Morse
-Jedidiah Morse, father of Samuel F.B. Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born into a Calvinist household in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1791 and distinguished himself in painting as a Yale undergraduate.
On the Edge of Poverty
"I find it impossible to live in college without spending money... When I have money in my hand I feel as though I had stolen it, and it is with the greatest pain that I part with it."
- Samuel Morse in letter to parents, March 6, 1808
"I need not tell you what a difficult profession I have undertaken. It has difficulties in itself, which are sufficient to deter any man who has not firmness enough to go through with it at all hazards. The more I study it, the more I am enchanted with it...."
- Samuel F.B. Morse in letter to his parents, May 2, 1814
Tragically Slow Communication
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Morse married Lucretia Pickering Walker, who died after the birth of their third child. Morse learned of his wife's death while painting a portrait of General Lafayette in Washington, D.C. Communication was slow. Ironically, Morse wrote his wife a letter two days after she died.