Morse was now admitted to the Royal Academy, and had visions of becoming great. He writes home: "I have just finished a model in clay of a figure ('The Dying Hercules'), my first attempt at sculpture. Mr. Allston is extremely pleased with it; he says it is better than all the things I have done since I have been in England, put together, and says I must send a cast of it home to you, and that it will convince you that I shall make a painter.... Mr. West also was extremely delighted with it. He said it was not merely an academical figure, but displayed _thought_. He could not have paid me a higher compliment.... My passion for my art is so firmly rooted that I am confident no human power could destroy it. The more I study, the greater I think is its claim to the appellation of _divine_, and I never shall be able sufficiently to show my gratitude to my parents for enabling me to pursue that profession without which I am sure I should be miserable. And if it is my destiny to become GREAT, and _worthy of a biographical memoir_, my biographer will never be _able to charge_ upon my parents that bigoted attachment to any individual profession, the exercise of which spirit by parents toward their children has been the ruin of some of the greatest geniuses." The model of the "Dying Hercules" was sent to the Society of Arts at the Adelphi, and Morse received the _gold medal_ given for the _best_ work in painting, sculpture, and architecture. Morse had taken letters of introduction to several prominent persons, like Wilberforce and Zachary Macaulay, the father of the historian, but he was too busy to use them. He gives another reason also--poverty. He says, "With regard to my expenses, I got through the first year with two hundred pounds, and hope the same sum will carry me through the second. If you knew the manner in which we live, you would wonder how it was possible I could have made so great a change in my habits. I am obliged to screw and pinch myself in a thousand things in which I used to indulge myself at home.... I breakfast on simple bread and butter, and two cups of coffee; I dine on either beef, mutton, or pork (_veal_ being out of the question, as it is one shilling and six pence per pound), baked, with potatoes, warm perhaps twice a week, all the rest of the week cold; at tea, bread and butter, with two cups of tea. This is my daily round.