He was,
altogether, a handsome young man, with manners unusually bland.
It is needless to add that with intelligence, high culture, and
general information, and with a strong bent to the fine arts, Mr.
Morse was in 1810 an attractive young man. During the last year
of his college life he occupied his leisure hours, with a view to
his self-support, in taking the likenesses of his fellow-students
on ivory, and no doubt with success, as he obtained afterward a
very respectable rank as a portrait-painter. Many pieces of his
skill were afterward executed in Charleston, South Carolina."*
* Prime, "The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse, LL.D.", p. 26.
That Morse was destined to be a painter seemed certain, and when,
soon after graduating from Yale, he made the acquaintance of
Washington Allston, an American artist of high standing, any
doubts that may have existed in his mind as to his vocation were
set at rest. Allston was then living in Boston, but was planning
to return to England, where his name was well known, and it was
arranged that young Morse should accompany him as his pupil. So
in 1811 Morse went to England with Allston and returned to
America four years later an accredited portrait painter, having
studied not only under Allston but under the famous master,
Benjamin West, and having met on intimate terms some of the great
Englishmen of the time.
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