So interested did Finley become in experiments along that line, that when at vacation time he found he could not afford to take the trip home, he was not much disappointed, but spent his time making tests in the laboratory. That his problems were much the same as those of young men of today is shown by this letter to his father. He says:
"I find it impossible to live in college without spending money. At one time a letter is to be paid for, then comes up a great tax from the class or society, which keeps me constantly running after money.... The amount of my expenses for the last term was fifteen dollars expended in the following manner:
| Postage | $ 2.05 |
| Oil | .50 |
| Taxes, fines, etc | 3.00 |
| Oysters | .50 |
| Washbowl | .37½ |
| Skillet | .33 |
| Axe, $1.33; Catalogues, 12¢ | 1.45 |
| Powder and shots | 1.12 |
| Cakes, etc. etc. etc. | 1.75 |
| Wine, Thanks Day | .20 |
| Toll on bridge | .15 |
| Grinding axe | .08 |
| Museum | .25 |
| Poor man | .14 |
| Carriage for trunk | 1.00 |
| Pitcher | .41 |
| Sharpening skates | .37½ |
| Circ. Library | .25 |
| Post Papers | .57 |
| Lent, never to be returned | .25 |
| $14.75 | |
| Paid for cutting wood | .25 |
| $15.00" |
Surely it would do the college boy of today good to read that list of expenses. It might be a revelation to him.
A postscript to the letter adds, "The students are very fond of raising balloons at present. I will (with your leave) when I return home, make one. They are pleasant sights."
At that time, he was as much interested in drawing as he was in electrical experiments, and could get a remarkable likeness of anyone who would pose for him. As there were no photographs in those days, his portraits were in great demand, and needing money, to help with his expenses he began to paint miniatures to order, his price being five dollars for those painted on ivory, and one dollar for profiles, and he says, "Everybody is ready to engage me at that price."
When his college course was at an end Finley wished to take up painting for a profession, but of this his parents did not approve, so for a short time he was apprenticed to a bookshop-keeper, but was so unhappy that Dr. and Mrs. Morse finally decided to let him become an artist, and when he was nineteen years old he went to Europe with the well-known artist, Washington Allston, to study art. In London he met Benjamin West, the famous painter, to whom Morse "a young pilgrim from the United States, modest and gentle, with his foot not yet on the first rung of the ladder of fame" made a great appeal, and West took the youth under his personal supervision, and felt enormous pride in his progress, for Finley's picture of the dying Hercules at the Royal Academy exhibition was named as one of the twelve best among two thousand exhibited, and his cast of Hercules took the gold medal at the Adelphi Society of Fine Arts.
Back again in America after four years abroad, young Morse had years of struggle ahead, but with undaunted courage continued to work, and at last, despite all obstacles won success as an artist. But of that no more in this brief sketch which has to do with the Inventor.
We have seen the child in school, the boy in college, the budding artist in his training, have watched him painting and making electrical experiments with equal enthusiasm, and now he is no longer a boy, but Morse, the man, when on that April day in 1832 we find him on the deck of the packet-ship Sully. There, alone with the mighty influences of Nature and his new idea, he is working out the first crude principles of the Telegraph system which in after years was to be such a revolutionizing factor in civilization and commerce.
Came years of struggle against what seemed to be overwhelming obstacles, but Morse was equal to the emergencies of the case and we have one more glimpse of him as the man who succeeded.