; that sea
monsters would bite it off and huge waves destroy it. Both men finally
prevailed over a doubting world by sheer force of indomitable
enthusiasm.

Many men in Mr. Field's place, having amassed a fortune comparatively
early in life, would have devoted themselves to ease and recreation. But
there was too much of the New England spirit of restless energy in Mr.
Field to permit him to pass the best years of his life thus
ingloriously. The great thought of his cable occurred to him, and he
became a man of one fixed idea, and ended by becoming a popular hero. No
private American citizen, probably, has received such distinguished
honors as Mr. Field when his cable was laid in 1867, and the undertaking
of his lifetime was successfully accomplished. And Mr. Field was
honestly entitled to all the glory and to all the financial profit that
he reaped. His project was one that only a giant mind could conceive,
and a giant mind and a giant will could carry on to execution.

As if to make the parallel with Columbus complete, Mr. Field passed his
last few days under the heavy shadow of misfortune. His son's failure,
and the sensational developments attending it, were probably the
occasion of his fatal illness. It is a melancholy termination of a
remarkable career to which the nations of the earth owe a vast debt of
gratitude.

Chicago _Tribune_, July 13, 1892.

The story of the twelve years' struggle to lay an Atlantic cable from
Ireland to Newfoundland is the story of one of the greatest battles with
the fates that any one man was ever called on to wage. It was a fight
not only against the ocean, jealous of its rights as a separator of the
continents, and against natural obstacles which seemed absolutely
unsurpassable, but a fight against stubborn Parliaments and Congresses,
and all the stumbling blocks of human disbelief. But the courage of
Cyrus W. Field was indomitable. _His patience and zeal were
inexhaustible, and so it came to pass, on July 27, 1866, that this man
knelt down in his cabin, like a second Columbus, and gave thanks to God,
for his labors were crowned with success at last._

He had lost his health. He had worn out his nervous forces by the
tremendous strain, and he paid in excruciating suffering the debt he
owed to nature. But he had won a fortune and a lasting fame.

THE BOSTON STATUE.

In 1849 the Italian merchants of Boston, under the presidency of Mr.
Iasigi, presented to the city a statue