With a heavy heart, but bravely determining not to be overwhelmed by this
crushing blow, Morse took up his work again. He finished the portrait of
Lafayette, and it now hangs in the City Hall in New York. Writing of it
many years later to a gentleman who had made some enquiries concerning
it, he says:--
"In answer to yours of the 8th instant, just received, I can only say it
is so long since I have seen the portrait I painted of General Lafayette
for the City of New York, that, strange to say, I find it difficult to
recall even its general characteristics.
"That portrait has a melancholy interest for me, for it was just as I had
commenced the second sitting of the General at Washington that I received
the stunning intelligence of Mrs. Morse's death, and was compelled
abruptly to suspend the work. I preserve, as a gratifying memorial, the
letter of condolence and sympathy sent in to me at the time by the
General, and in which he speaks in flattering terms of the promise of the
portrait as a likeness.
"I must be frank, however, in my judgment of my own works of that day.
This portrait was begun under the sad auspices to which I have alluded,
and, up to the close of the work, I had a series of constant
interruptions of the same sad character.
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