SAMUEL F.B. MORSE HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I [Illustration: Samuel F.B. Morse] SAMUEL F.B. MORSE HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS EDITED AND SUPPLEMENTED BY HIS SON EDWARD LIND MORSE ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF HIS PAINTINGS AND WITH NOTES AND DIAGRAMS BEARING ON THE INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH VOLUME I 1914 TO MY WIFE WHOSE LOVING INTEREST AND APT CRITICISM HAVE BEEN TO ME OF GREAT VALUE I DEDICATE THIS WORK "It is the hour of fate, And those who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death. But they who doubt or hesitate-- Condemned to failure, penury and woe-- Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. I hear them not, and I return no more." Ingalls, _Opportunity_. PREFACE Arthur Christopher Benson, in the introduction to his studies in biography entitled "The Leaves of the Tree," says:-- "But when it comes to dealing with men who have played upon the whole a noble part in life, whose vision has been clear and whose heart has been wide, who have not merely followed their own personal ambitions, but have really desired to leave the world better and happier than they found it,--in such cases, indiscriminate praise is not only foolish and untruthful, it is positively harmful and noxious. What one desires to see in the lives of others is some sort of transformation, some evidence of patient struggling with faults, some hint of failings triumphed over, some gain of generosity and endurance and courage. To slur over the faults and failings of the great is not only inartistic: it is also faint-hearted and unjust. It alienates sympathy. It substitutes unreal adoration for wholesome admiration; it afflicts the reader, conscious of frailty and struggle, with a sense of hopeless despair in the presence of anything so supremely high-minded and flawless."