f so trivial a character,
too, that they who know how to ask (which I do not) could obtain in a few
hours. One more year has gone for want of these means. I have now
ascertained that, however unpromising were the times last session, if I
could but have gone to Washington, I could have got some aid to enable me
to insure success at the next session."

The other projects for telegraphs must have been abandoned, for he goes
on to say:--

"As it is, although everything is favorable, although I have no
competition and no opposition--on the contrary, although every member of
Congress, as far as I can learn, is favorable--yet I fear all will fail
because I am too poor to risk the trifling expense which my journey and
residence in Washington will occasion me. I will not run in debt if I
lose the whole matter. So, unless I have the means from some source, I
shall be compelled, however reluctantly, to leave it, and, if I get once
engaged in my proper profession again, the Telegraph and its proprietors
will urge me from it in vain.

"No one can tell the days and months of anxiety and labor I have had in
perfecting my telegraphic apparatus. For want of means I have been
compelled to make with my own hands (and to labor for weeks) a piece of
mechanism which could be made much better, and in a tenth part of the
time, by a good mechanician, thus wasting _time_--time which I cannot
recall and which seems double-winged to me.

"'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' It is true and I have known the
full meaning of it. Nothing but the consciousness that I have an
invention which is to mark an era in human civilization, and which is to
contribute to the happiness of millions, would have sustained me through
so many and such lengthened trials of patience in perfecting it."

CHAPTER XXIX

JULY 16. 1842--MARCH 26, 1843

Continued discouragements.--Working on improvements.--First submarine
cable from Battery to Governor's Island.--The Vails refuse to give
financial assistance.--Goes to Washington.--Experiments conducted at the
Capitol.--First to discover duplex and wireless telegraphy.--Dr. Fisher.
--Friends in Congress.--Finds his statuette of Dying Hercules in basement
of Capitol.--Alternately hopes and despairs of bill passing Congress.--
Bill favorably reported from committee.--Clouds breaking.--Ridicule in
Congress.--Bill passes House by narrow majority.--Long delay in Senate.--
Last day of session.--Despair.--Bill passes.--