uble
and lucid explanation, he modestly and generously disclaimed any honor,
and begged that any such recognition should be given to the inventor
himself. Other decorations and degrees were bestowed upon the inventor
from time to time, but these will be summarized in a future chapter. I
have enlarged upon this one as being the first to be received from a
foreign monarch.

As his fame increased, requests of all sorts poured in on him, and it is
amazing to find how courteously he answered even the most fantastic,
overwhelmed as he was by his duties in connection with the attacks on his
purse and his reputation. Two of his answers to correspondents are here
given as examples:--

January 17, 1849.

Gentlemen,--I have received your polite invitation to the Printers'
Festival in honor of Franklin, on his birthday the 17th of the present
month, and regret that my engagements in the city put it out of my power
to be present.

I thank you kindly for the flattering notice you are pleased to take of
me in connection with the telegraph, and made peculiarly grateful at the
present time as coming from a class of society with whom are my earliest
pleasurable associations. I may be allowed, perhaps, to say that in my
boyhood it was my delight, during my vacations, to seek my pastime in the
operations of the printing-office. I solicited of my father to take the
corrected proofs of his Geography to the printing-office, and there,
through the day for weeks, I made myself practically acquainted with all
the operations of the printer. At 9 years of age I compiled a small
volume of stories, called it the 'Youth's Friend,' and then set it up,
locked the matter in its form, prepared the paper and worked it off;
going through the entire process till it was ready for the binder. I
think I have some claim, therefore, to belong to the fraternity.

The other letter was in answer to one from a certain Solomon Andrews,
President of the Inventors' Institute of Perth Amboy, who was making
experiments in aviation, and I shall give but a few extracts:--

"I know by experience the language of the world in regard to an untried
invention. He who will accomplish anything useful and new must steel
himself against the sneers of the ignorant, and often against the
unimaginative sophistries of the learned....

"In regard to the subject on which you desire an opinion, I will say that
the idea of navigating the air has been a favorite one with the inventiv