He did manage to pay a short visit to his home, and then he started for New York by boat, but was driven by a storm into Black Rock Harbor and continued his journey from there by land. Writing home the day after his arrival he says: "I have obtained a place to board at friend Coolidge's at two dollars and twenty-five cents a week, and have taken for my studio a fine room in Broadway opposite Trinity Churchyard, for which I am to pay six dollars and fifty cents a week, being fifty cents less than I expected to pay."
There has been some increase in the rental price of rooms on Broadway opposite Trinity Churchyard since that day.
Further on he says:—
"I shall go to work in a few days vigorously. It is a half mile from my room to the place where I board, so that I am obliged to walk more than three miles every day. It is good exercise for me and I feel better for it. I sleep in my room on the floor and put my bed out of sight during the day, as at Washington. I feel in the spirit of 'buckling down to it,' and am determined to paint and study with all my might this winter."
The loving wife is distressed at the idea of his sleeping on the floor, and thus expresses herself in a letter which is dated, curiously enough, November 31: "You know, dear Finley, I have always set my face as a flint and have borne my testimony against your sleeping on the floor. Indeed, it makes my heart ache, when I go to bed in my comfortable chamber, to think of my dear husband sleeping without a bedstead. Your mother says she sent one to Richard, which he has since told her was unnecessary as he used a settee, and which you can get of him. But, if it is in use, do get one or I shall take no comfort."
Soon after his arrival in New York he began the portrait of Chancellor
Kent, and writing of him he says:—
"He is not a good sitter; he scarcely presents the same view twice; he is very impatient and you well know that I cannot paint an impatient person; I must have my mind at ease or I cannot paint.
"I have no more applications as yet, but it is not time to expect them. All the artists are complaining, and there are many of them, and they are all poor. The arts are as low as they can be. It is no better at the South, and all the accounts of the arts or artists are of the most discouraging nature."
The portrait of the Chancellor seems not to have brought him more orders, for a little later he writes to his wife: "I waited many days in the hope of some application in my profession, but have been disappointed until last evening I called and spent the evening with my friend Mr. Van Schaick, and told him I had thought of painting some little design from the 'Sketch Book,' so as not to be idle, and mentioned the subject of Ichabod Crane discovering the headless horseman.
"He said: 'Paint it for me and another picture of the same size, and I will take them of you.' So I am now employed….