cided to place the wires on poles in the air. He then
inquired how I proposed to insulate the wires when they were attached to
the poles. I showed him the model I had of Mr. Vail's plan, and he said,
"It will not do; you will meet the same difficulty you had in the pipes."
I then explained to him your plan which he said would answer.'"

However, before the enterprise had reached this point in March, 1844,
many dark and discouraging days and weeks had to be passed, which we can
partially follow by the following extracts from letters to his brother
Sidney and others. To his brother he writes on January 9, 1844:--

"I thank you for your kind and sympathizing letter, which, I assure you,
helped to mitigate the acuteness of my mental sufferings from the then
disastrous aspect of my whole enterprise. God works by instrumentalities,
and he has wonderfully thus far interposed in keeping evils that I feared
in abeyance. All, I trust, will yet be well, but I have great
difficulties to encounter and overcome, with the details of which I need
not now trouble you. I think I see light ahead, and the great result of
these difficulties, I am persuaded, will be a great economy in laying the
telegraphic conductors.... I am well in health but have sleepless nights
from the great anxieties and cares which weigh me down."

"_January 13._ I am working to retrieve myself under every disadvantage
and amidst accumulated and most diversified trials, but I have strength
from the source of strength, and courage to go forward. Fisher I have
dismissed for unfaithfulness; Dr. Gale has resigned from ill-health;
Smith has become a malignant enemy, and Vail only remains true at his
post. All my pipe is useless as the wires are all injured by the _hot
process_ of manufacture. I am preparing (as I said before, under every
disadvantage) a short distance between the Patent Office and Capitol,
which I am desirous of having completed as soon as possible, and by means
of it relieving the enterprise from the heavy weight which now threatens
it."

To his good friend, Commissioner Ellsworth, he writes from Baltimore on
February 7:--

"In complying with your kind request that I would write you, I cannot
refrain from expressing my warm thanks for the words of sympathy and the
promise of a welcome on my return, which you gave me as I was leaving the
door. I find that, brace myself as I will against trouble, the spirit so
sympathises with the body that its moods