and bid adieu to the subject of the Telegraph for some more
profitable business....

I have just finished a most beautiful register with a _pen lever key_ and
an expanding reel. Have orders for six of the same kind to be made at
once; three for the south and three for the west.

I regret you could not, on your return from the west, have made us at
least a flying visit with your charming lady. I am happy to learn that
your cup of happiness is so full in the society of one who, I learn from
Mr. K., is well calculated to cheer you and relieve the otherwise
solitude of your life.... My kindest wishes for yourself and Mrs. Morse,
and believe me to be, now as ever,

Yours, etc.,
ALFRED VAIL.

Mr. James D. Reid in an article in the "Electrical World," October 12,
1895, after quoting from this letter; adds:--

"The truth is Mr. Vail had no natural aptitude for executive work, and he
had a temper somewhat variable and unhappy. He and I got along very well
together until I determined to order my own instruments, his being too
heavy and too difficult, as I thought, for an operator to handle while
receiving. We had our instruments made by the same maker--Clark & Co.,
Philadelphia. Yet even that did not greatly separate us, and we were
always friends. About some things his notions were very crude. It was
under his guidance that David Brooks, Henry C. Hepburn and I, in 1845,
undertook to insulate the line from Lancaster to Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, by saturating bits of cotton cloth in beeswax and wrapping
them round projecting arms. The bees enjoyed it greatly, but it spoiled
our work.

"But I have no desire to criticize him. He seemed to me to have great
opportunities which he did not use. He might have had, I thought, the
register work of the country and secured a large business. But it went
from him to others, and so he left the field."

This eventful year of 1848 closed with the great telegraph suits in full
swing, but with the inventor calm under all his trials. In a letter, of
December 18, to his brother Sidney, who had now returned to America, he
says: "My affairs (Telegraphically) are only under a slight mist, hardly
a cloud; I see through the mist already."

And in another part of this letter he says: "I may see you at the end of
the week. If I can bring Sarah down with me, I will, to spend Christmas,
but the weather may change and prevent. What weather! I am working on the
lawn as if it were spring. You have no