als and
discouragements of every kind, with a sublime faith in the ultimate
success of his efforts, until the fight be won. Otherwise, if he retires
beaten from the field of battle, another will snatch up his sword and hew
his way to victory.

It must never be forgotten that Morse won his place in the Hall of Fame,
not only because of his invention of the simplest and best method of
conveying intelligence by electricity, but because he, alone and unaided,
carried forward the enterprise when, but for him, it would have been
allowed to fail. With no thought of disparaging the others, who can
hardly be blamed for their loss of faith, and who were of great
assistance to him later on when the battle was nearly won, I feel that it
is only just to lay emphasis on this factor in the claim of Morse to
greatness.

It will not be necessary to record in detail the events of the year 1840.
The inventor, always confident that success would eventually crown his
efforts, lived a life of privation and constant labor in the two fields
of art and science. He was still President of the National Academy of
Design, and in September he was elected an honorary member of the
Mercantile Library Association. He strove to keep the wolf from the door
by giving lessons in painting and by practising the new art of
daguerreotypy, and, in the mean time, he employed every spare moment in
improving and still further simplifying his invention.

He heard occasionally from his associates. The following sentences are
from a letter of Alfred Vail's, dated Philadelphia, January 13, 1840:--

Friend S.F.B. Morse,

Dear Sir, It is many a day since I last had the pleasure of seeing and
conversing with you, and, if I am not mistaken, it is as long since any
communications have been exchanged. However I trust it will not long be
so. When I last had the pleasure of seeing you it was when on my way to
Philadelphia, at which time you had the kindness to show me specimens of
the greatest discovery ever made, with the exception of the
Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. By the by, I have been thinking that it is
time money in some way was made out of the Telegraph, and I am almost
ready to order an instrument made, and to make the proposition to you to
exhibit it here. What do you think of the plan? If Mr. Prosch will make
me a first-rate, most perfect machine, and as speedily as possible, and
will wait six or nine months for his pay, you may order one for me.

Morse's re