If you should think favorably of the plan, I offer you my services _gratuitously_.
To this letter Daguerre replied on July 26:-- MY DEAR SIR,--I have received with great pleasure your kind letter by which you announce to me my election as an honorary member of the National Academy of Design.

I beg you will be so good as to express my thanks to the Academy, and to say that I am very proud of the honor which has been conferred upon me.

I shall seize all opportunities of proving my gratitude for it.

I am particularly indebted to you in this circumstance, and I feel very thankful for this and all other marks of interest you bestowed upon me.
The transaction with the French Government being nearly at an end, my discovery shall soon be made public.

This cause, added to the immense distance between us, hinders me from taking the advantage of your good offer to get up at New York an exhibition of my results.
Believe me, my dear sir, your very devoted servant, DAGUERRE.
A prophecy, shrewd in some particulars but rather faulty in others, of the influence of this new art upon painting, is contained in the following extracts from a letter of Morse's to his friend and master Washington Allston:-- "I had hoped to have seen you long ere this, but my many avocations have kept me constantly employed from morning till night.