d the
stars and the charts, and out of the dreams of ages wove the fabric
of fancy that grew to theory, and prophecy, and history, that there
was land beyond the Atlantic; and there is no moment in human life
supreme above, or of more fascinating interest than, that when, from
the deck of his caravel he saw the light on the shore of the new
world.

An incident worthy to be associated for ever with this, is that of
Cyrus West Field, in his library, turning over a globe, after a
conversation relative to extending a line of telegraph to
Newfoundland, to reduce the time of the transmission of news between
Europe and America; when the idea flashed into his mind that the
telegraph might span the Atlantic. The next day Mr. Field wrote to
Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory at Washington, and to
Professor Morse, who invented the telegraph.

The Atlantic telegraph was as truly the conception and the
accomplishment of Mr. Field, as the discovery of America was the
ambition and the act of Columbus; and Chief Justice Chase was not
extravagant when he said the telegraph across the ocean was "the
most wonderful achievement of civilization," and entitled "its
author to a distinguished rank among benefactors;" or when he added:
"High upon that illustrious roll will his name be placed, and there
will it remain while oceans divide and telegraphs unite mankind."
John Bright said: "My friend Field, the Columbus of modern times, by
his cable has moored the New World alongside the Old."

Equally lofty testimony to the splendor of his fame is that of the
London _Times_ of August 6, 1858, saying: "Since the discovery of
Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast
enlargement which has thus been given to the sphere of human
activity."

From the first vital spark that at last glows into the bloom of
life, each human being is endowed with certain qualities and
capacities, aptitudes, inspirations, possibilities, limitations; and
if one trace the stream of blood to its remotest sources, there is
no inconsistency in ancestry, and the science of humanity may be as
strict within its boundaries as that of geology, or the story of
fruitful trees, or the magnetic constellations.

The four famous brothers have given the Field family an almost
unique celebrity in this country. They were the sons of the Rev.
David Dudley Field, of Western Massachusetts, the room-mate at Yale
College of Jeremiah Evarts, father of Wi