e, and they know what will be for your
good hereafter, what studies will be most useful to you in after life.
Therefore buckle down to your studies diligently and very soon you will
get to love your studies, and then it will be a pleasure and not a task
to learn your lessons.

"We miss your _noise_, but, although agreeable quiet has come in place of
it, we should be willing to have the noise if we could have our dear boys
near us. You are, indeed, troublesome pleasures, but, after all, pleasant
troubles. When you are settled in life and have a family around you, you
will better understand what I mean."

In spite of the disorganization of business caused by the war, the value
of telegraphic property was rapidly increasing, and new lines were being
constantly built or proposed. Morse refers to this in a letter of June
25, 1864, to his old friend George Wood:--

"To you, as well as to myself, the rapid progress of the Telegraph
throughout the world must seem wonderful, and with me you will,
doubtless, often recur to our friend Annie's inspired message--'What hath
God wrought.' It is, indeed, his marvellous work, and to Him be the
glory.

"Early in the history of the invention, in forecasting its future, I was
accustomed to predict with confidence, 'It is destined to go round the
world,' but I confess I did not expect to live to see the prediction
fulfilled. It is quite as wonderful to me also that, with the thousand
attempts to improve my system, with the mechanical skill of the world
concentrated upon improving the mechanism, the result has been beautiful
complications and great ingenuity, but no improvement. I have the
gratification of knowing that my system, everywhere known as the 'Morse
system,' is universally adopted throughout the world, because of its
simplicity and its adaptedness to universality."

This remains true to the present day, and is one of the remarkable
features of this great invention. The germ of the "Morse system," as
jotted down in the 1832 sketch-book, is the basic principle of the
universal telegraph of to-day.

In another letter to Mr. Wood, of September 11, 1864, referring to the
sad death of the son of a mutual friend, he touches on two of the great
enigmas of life which have puzzled many other minds:--

"It is one of those mysteries of Providence, one of those deep things of
God to be unfolded in eternity, with the perfect vindication of God's
wisdom and justice, that children of piou