In February, 1854, Mr. Cyrus W. Field, of New York, ignorant of Professor Morse's views upon this subject, wrote to him to ask if he considered the working of a cable across the Atlantic practicable. The Professor at once sought an interview with Mr. Field, and assured him of his entire confidence in the undertaking. He entered heartily into Mr. Field's scheme, and rendered great aid in the noble enterprise which has been described elsewhere in these pages. He was present at each attempt to lay the cable, and participated in the final triumph by which his prediction, made twenty-three years previous, was verified. Professor Morse is now in his eightieth year. He resides during the winter in the city of New York, and passes his summers at his beautiful country seat near Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson. He bears his great honors with the same modesty which marked his early struggles, and is the center of a host of friends whom he has attached to himself by the tenderest ties. "Courage and patience have been his watchwords, and although the snows of time have bleached his hair, the same intelligence and enterprising spirit, the same urbane disposition that endeared him to the friends of his youth, still cause all who know him to rejoice in the honorable independence which his great invention has secured to his age." IV. PUBLISHERS. CHAPTER XXI. JAMES HARPER. Some years ago a gentleman having business with the great house of Harper & Brothers asked one of the employés of that establishment, "Which one is Harper, and which are the brothers?" He was answered, "Either one is Harper, and all the rest are the brothers." This reply fully sets forth the difficulty which must be experienced by any one attempting to write the story of the life of either member of this house. In such an undertaking it is very difficult to select "Harper," and impossible to pass by the "Brothers." The interests of each were so thoroughly in harmony with those of all the others, and there was such perfect unanimity of sentiment existing between them with regard to their private as well as their public affairs, that it is hardly possible to separate them. Since, however, it is not consistent with the design of this work to relate the history of the "house," it is the purpose of the writer to select the eldest of the brothers as the representative of the group, and to offer him to the reader as a type of the American publisher.