he problem first; others striving by dishonest
means to appropriate to themselves the honor and the rewards, and these
sometimes succeeding; and still others, indifferent to fame, thinking
only of their own pecuniary gain and dishonorable in their methods. The
electric telegraph was no exception to this rule; on the contrary, its
history perhaps leads all the rest as a chronicle of "envy, hatred,
malice, and all uncharitableness." On the other hand, it brings out in
strong relief the opposing virtues of steadfastness, perseverance,
integrity, and loyalty.

Many were the wordy battles waged in the scientific world over the
questions of priority, exclusive discovery or invention, indebtedness to
others, and conscious or unconscious plagiarism. Some of these questions
are, in many minds, not yet settled. Acrimonious were the legal struggles
fought over infringements and rights of way, and, in the first years of
the building of the lines to all parts of this country, real warfare was
waged by the workers of competing companies.

It is not my purpose to treat exhaustively of any of these battles,
scientific, legal, or physical. All this has already been written down by
abler pens than mine, and has now become history. My aim in following the
career of Morse the Inventor is to shed a light (to some a new light) on
his personality, self-revealed by his correspondence, tried first by
hardships, poverty, and deep discouragement, and then by success,
calumny, and fame. Like other men who have achieved greatness, he was
made the target for all manner of abuse, accused of misappropriating the
ideas of others, of lying, deceit, and treachery, and of unbounded
conceit and vaingloriousness. But a careful study of his notes and
correspondence, and the testimony of others, proves him to have been a
pure-hearted Christian gentleman, earnestly desirous of giving to every
one his just due, but jealous of his own good name and fame, and fighting
valiantly, when needs must be, to maintain his rights; guilty sometimes
of mistakes and errors of judgment; occasionally quick-tempered and testy
under the stress of discouragement and the pressure of poverty, but frank
to acknowledge his error and to make amends when convinced of his fault;
and the calm verdict of posterity has awarded him the crown of greatness.

Morse was now forty-one years old; he had spent three delightful years in
France and Italy; had matured his art by the intelligent stud