gave his
mind to a subject which required his perfect mastery....

"He drew up the brief with his own hand for one of the distinguished
counsel in a great lawsuit involving his patent rights, and his lawyer
said it was the argument that carried conviction to every unprejudiced
mind.

"Such was the versatility and variety of his mental endowments that he
would have been great in any department of human pursuits. His wonderful
rapidity of thought was associated with patient, plodding perseverance, a
combination rare but mightily effective. He leaped to a possible
conclusion, and then slowly developed the successive steps by which the
end was gained and the result made secure. He covered thousands of pages
with his pencil notes, annotated large and numerous volumes, filled huge
folios with valuable excerpts from newspapers, illustrated processes of
thought with diagrams, and was thus fortified and enriched with stores of
knowledge and masses of facts, so digested, combined and arranged, that
he had them at his easy command to defend the past or to help him onward
to fresh conquests in the fields of truth. Yet such was his modesty and
reticence in regard to himself that none outside of his household were
aware of his resources, and his attainments were only known when
displayed in self-defense. Then they never failed to be ample for the
occasion, as every opponent had reason to remember.

"Yet he was gentle as he was great. Many thought him weak because he was
simple, childlike and unworldly. Often he suffered wrong rather than
resist, and this disposition to yield was frequently his loss. The
firmness, tenacity and perseverance with which he fought his foes were
the fruits of his integrity, principle and profound convictions of right
and duty.... His nature was a rare combination of solid intellect and
delicate sensibility. Thoughtful, sober and quiet, he readily entered
into the enjoyments of domestic and social life, indulging in sallies of
humor, and readily appreciating and greatly enjoying the wit of others.
Dignified in his intercourse with men, courteous and affable with the
gentler sex, he was a good husband, a judicious father, a generous and
faithful friend.

"He had the misfortune to incur the hostility of men who would deprive
him of his merit and the reward of his labors. But this is the common
fate of great inventors. He lived until his rights were vindicated by
every tribunal to which they could be refe