g with pleasure on a drawing sent to the boy by his
cousin, Mary Goodrich, pronouncing it excellent.

Shortly before the end pneumonia set in, and one of the attending
physicians, tapping on his chest, said "This is the way we doctors
telegraph"; and the dying man, with a momentary gleam of the old humor
lighting up his fading eyes, whispered, "Very good." These were the last
words spoken by him.

From a letter written by one who was present at his bedside to another
member of the family I shall quote a few words: "He is fast passing away.
It is touching to see him so still, so unconscious of all that is
passing, waiting for death. He has suffered much with neuralgia of the
head, increased of late by a miserable pamphlet by F.O.J.S. Poor dear
man! Strange that they could not leave him in peace in his old age. But
now all sorrow is forgotten. He lies quiet infant. Heaven is opening to
him with its peace and perfect rest. The doctor calls his sickness
'exhaustion of the brain.' He looks very handsome; the light of Heaven
seems shining on his beautiful eyes."

On April 1, consciousness returned for a few moments and he recognized
his wife and those around him with a smile, but without being able to
speak. Then he gradually sank to sleep and on the next day he gently
breathed his last.

His faithful and loving friend, James D. Reid, in the Journal of the
Telegraph, of which he was editor, paid tribute to his memory in the
following touching words:--

"In the ripeness and mellow sunshine of the end of an honored and
protracted life Professor Morse, the father of the American Telegraph
system, our own beloved friend and father, has gone to his rest. The
telegraph, the child of his own brain, has long since whispered to every
home in all the civilized world that the great inventor has passed away.
Men, as they pass each other on the street, say, with the subdued voice
of personal sorrow, 'Morse is dead.' Yet to us he lives. If he is dead it
is only to those who did not know him.

"It is not the habit of ardent affection to be garrulous in the
excitement of such an occasion as this. It would fain gaze on the dead
face in silence. The pen, conscious of its weakness, hesitates in its
work of endeavoring to reveal that which the heart can alone interpret in
a language sacred to itself, and by tears no eye may ever see. For such
reason we, who have so much enjoyed the sweetness of the presence of this
venerable man, now so c