Famous Men of Science

"I was distressed and astonished. I said, hurriedly: 'Would ten dollars be of any service?'

"'Ten dollars would save my life; that is all it would do.'

"I paid the money, all that I had, and we dined together. It was a modest meal, but good, and, after he had finished, he said: 'This is my first meal in twenty-four hours. Strother, don't be an artist. It means beggary. Your life depends upon people who know nothing of your art, and care nothing for you. A house-dog lives better, and the very sensitiveness that stimulates an artist to work keeps him alive to suffering.'"

Even the janitor of the University building said to a young man who was looking for a studio for himself: "You will have an artist for your neighbor, though he is not here much of late; he seems to be getting rather shiftless, he is wasting his time over some silly invention, a machine by which he expects to send messages from one place to another. He is a very good painter, and might do well if he would only stick to his business; but, Lord!" he added, with a sneer of contempt, "the idea of telling by a little streak of lightning what a body is saying at the other end of it!"

"Judge of my astonishment," says the young man, "when he informed me that the 'shiftless individual,' whose foolish waste of time so much excited his commiseration, was none other than the president of the National Academy of Design, – the most exalted position, in my youthful artistic fancy, it was possible for mortal to attain."

Once more, in some way, Morse obtained the money to go to Washington, and make another effort. December 30, 1842, a bill was at last submitted, asking for the thirty-thousand-dollar appropriation. It received much ridicule from some of the members. One suggested that there should be an appropriation for mesmeric experiments; another suggested the same for Millerism. At last the vote was taken in the House, Morse sitting in the gallery watching the result with feverish anxiety. The vote stood 89 yeas to 83 nays. IT WAS CARRIED.

Would it pass the Senate? The amount of business to be transacted made its coming up improbable. The last day of the session came. Morse sat all the day and evening in the gallery, and finally went to his hotel, nearly prostrated from disappointment.

In the morning, as he came down to breakfast, Annie G. Ellsworth, the daughter of his old friend, the Commissioner of Patents, came toward him with a bright smile, saying: "I have come to congratulate you!"

"For what, my dear friend?"

"On the passage of your bill."

Morse could scarcely believe the good news, that the bill had passed, in the last moments of the session, without opposition. He was nearly overcome with joy, and told the young lady that she should send the first message over the first line.

He at once proceeded to construct the first line of his electric telegraph between Washington and Baltimore. Ezra Cornell, later one of the most successful constructors and largest proprietors of telegraphs, and the founder of Cornell University, was employed at a salary of one thousand dollars a year.

After many perplexities, the line was completed. On May 24, 1844, Morse invited his friends to assemble in the chamber of the United States Supreme Court, where he had his instrument in connection with Baltimore. Annie Ellsworth's mother had suggested to her these words from the Bible, for the first message: "What hath God wrought!" No words could have been more in accordance with Morse's feelings. Taking his seat at the instrument, he spelled out the words, and instantly they were received by Mr. Vail in Baltimore, who resent them the same moment to Washington. The strip of paper on which this message is printed is now in the Athenæum at Hartford, Conn.

What must have been Professor Morse's feelings at that moment. The day of triumph had come – the twelve weary years of poverty were over. Hereafter he was to be like one of the princes of the world.

A telegraph company was formed which offered to sell the telegraph to the government for one hundred thousand dollars. Congress refused to buy, much to the subsequent profit of the Morse company. In less than thirty years, the Morse telegraph was used in America upon two hundred and fifty thousand miles of wire, and in foreign countries upon six hundred thousand miles of wire, while the telegraph receipts throughout the world were about forty million dollars yearly.

There were many amusing incidents in connection with this early telegraph. "A pretty little girl tripped into the Washington City termination, and, after a great deal of hesitation and blushing, asked how long it would take to send to Baltimore. The interesting appearance of the little questioner attracted Mr. Morse's attention, and he very blandly replied, 'One second!'

"'Oh, how delightful, how delightful!' ejaculated the little beauty, her eyes glistening with delight. 'One second only; here, send this even quicker if you can.' And Mr. Morse found in his hand a neatly folded, gilt-edged note, the very perfume and shape of which told a volume of love.

"'I cannot send this note,' said Mr. Morse, with some feeling; 'it is impossible.'

"'Oh, do, do!' implored the distracted girl. 'William and I have had a quarrel, and I shall die if he don't know that I forgive him in a second. I know I shall.'

"Mr. Morse still objected to sending the note, when the fair one, brightening up, asked, 'You will, then, send me on, won't you?'

"'Perhaps,' said one of the clerks, 'it would take your breath away to travel forty miles in a second.'

"'Oh, no, it won't! no, it won't, if it carries me to William! The cars in the morning go so slow I can't wait for them.'

"Mr. Morse now comprehended the mistake which the petitioner was laboring under, and attempted to explain the process of conveying important information along the wires. The letter-writer listened a few moments, impatiently, and then rolled her burning epistle into a ball, in the excitement under which she labored, and thrust it into her bosom.

"'It's too slow!' she finally exclaimed; 'it's too slow! and my heart will break before William knows I forgive him; and you are a cruel man, Mr. Morse,' said the fair creature, the tears coming into her eyes, 'that you won't let me travel by the telegraph to see William.' And, full of emotion, she left the office."

All these years Morse was longing for a home. In 1845 he wrote his daughter, who was now married and living in Porto Rico, in the West Indies, "I do long for the time, if it shall be permitted, to have you, with your husband and little Charles, around me; I feel my loneliness more and more keenly every day. Fame and money are, in themselves, a poor substitute for domestic happiness: as means to that end, I value them. Yesterday was the sad anniversary (the twentieth) of your dear mother's death, and I spent the most of it in thinking of her."

Two years later he purchased two hundred acres on the Hudson River, near Poughkeepsie, calling it "Locust Grove," and built a handsome and spacious Italian villa for his residence. With the telegraph in his library, he could now converse with men in all parts of the world. Here he gathered his children and grandchildren around him. He was now fifty-six years old. Fame and money had come late in life. The next year he married Miss Sarah E. Griswold, the daughter of his cousin, a lady thirty years his junior.

His life here was peaceful and happy, most of the day being spent in reading and writing. He was very fond of nature. One of his daughters writes: "He loved flowers. He would take one in his hand, and talk for hours about its beauty, its wonderful construction, and the wisdom and love of God in making so many varied forms of life and color to please our eyes. In his later years he became deeply interested in the microscope, and purchased one of great excellence and power. For whole hours, all the afternoon or evening, he would sit over it, examining flowers, or the animalcula in different fluids. Then he would gather his children about him, and give us a sort of extempore lecture on the wonders of creation, invisible to the naked eye, but so clearly brought to view by the magnifying power of the microscope.

"He was very fond of animals, cats and birds in particular. He tamed a little flying-squirrel, and it became so fond of him that it would sit on his shoulder while he was at his studies, and would eat out of his hand, and sleep in his pocket. To this little animal he became so much attached that we took it with us to Europe, where it came to an untimely end, in Paris, by running into an open fire."

In New York he bought a large house, No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, for his winter residence, and, on a vacant lot adjoining, erected an elegant building for his library and study. What a contrast between this and the time when "Porte Crayon" gave him ten dollars, which Morse said would save his life!

Honors now poured in upon him. In 1835 he had been elected a member of the Historical Institute of France.

In 1837, a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Belgium.

In 1839 the Great Silver Medal of the Academy of Industry of Paris was voted him.

In 1841, a corresponding member of the National Institution for the Promotion of Science at Washington.

In 1842, the gold medal of the American Institute.

In 1845, a corresponding member of the Archæological Society of Belgium.

In 1846, Doctor of Laws by Yale College.

In 1848, the first decoration ever bestowed by the Sultan of Turkey upon a citizen of the United States, Nishan Iftikar, in diamonds; he was also made a member of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

In 1849, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston.

In 1851, a golden snuff-box containing the Prussian golden medal for scientific merit.

In 1852, the Great Gold Medal of Arts and Sciences from the King of Würtemberg.

In 1855, the Great Gold Medal of Science and Art from the Emperor of Austria.

In 1856, the brevet and decoration as Chevalier of the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honor, from the Emperor of France.

In 1856, the Cross of the Order of Dannebrog from the King of Denmark.

In 1858, a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden.

In 1859, the order of knighthood and Commander of the First Class of the Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic, from Isabella II. of Spain.

In 1860, Knight of the Tower and Sword, from the King of Portugal.

In 1864, Chevalier of the Royal Order of Saints Lazaro and Mauritio, from Victor Emmanuel II., King of Italy.

In 1866, honorary member of the Société de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle of Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1857, Morse aided in the attempt to lay the Atlantic cable, being made electrician of the company. This was eminently fitting, as he had laid the first submarine cable, in 1842, October 18; one moonlight night in the harbor of New York City, between Castle Garden and Governor's Island.

In 1858, France, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Piedmont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany, and Turkey presented Mr. Morse with an honorary gratuity of four hundred thousand francs, "as a reward, altogether personal, of your useful labors."