And Morse, writing to Vail somewhat later in this same year, exclaims:  “You say you hope I shall not forget that we have spent many hours together.  You might have added ‘happy hours.’  I have tried you, dear Vail, as a friend, and think I know you as a zealous and honest one.”

Still earlier, on March 18, 1845, in one of his reports to the Postmaster-General, Cave Johnson, he adds:  “In regard to the salary of the ‘one clerk at Washington—­$1200,’ Mr. Vail, who would from the necessity of the case take that post, is my right-hand man in the whole enterprise.  He has been with me from the year 1837, and is as familiar with all the mechanism and scientific arrangements of the Telegraph as I am myself....  His time and talent are more essential to the success of the Telegraph than [those of] any two persons that could be named.”

Returning now to the letters to his brother Sidney, I shall give the following extracts:—­

“March 29, 1847. I am now in New York permanently; that is I have no longer any official connection with Washington, and am thinking of fixing somewhere so soon as I can get my telegraphic matters into such a state as to warrant it; but my patience is still much tried.  Although the enterprise looks well and is prospering, yet somehow I do not command the cash as some business men would if they were in the same situation.  The property is doubtless good and is increasing, but I cannot use it as I could the money, for, while everybody seems to think I have the wealth of John Jacob, the only sum I have actually realized is my first dividend on one line, about fourteen hundred dollars, and with this I cannot purchase a house.  But time will, perhaps, enable me to do so, if it is well that I should have one....  I have had some pretty threatening obstacles, but they as yet are summer clouds which seem to be dissipating through the smiles of our Heavenly Father.  House’s affair I think is dead.  I believe it has been held up by speculators to drive a better bargain with me, thinking to scare me; but they don’t find me so easily frightened.  In Virginia I had to oppose a most bigoted, narrow, illiberal clique in a railroad company, which had the address to get a bill through the House of Delegates giving them actually the monopoly of telegraphs, and ventured to halloo before they were out of the woods.  Mr. Kendall went post-haste to Richmond, met the bill and its supporters before the Committee of the Senate, and, after a sharp contest, procured its rejection in the Senate, and the adoption, by a vote of 13 to 7, of a substitute granting me right of way and corporate powers, which bill, after violent opposition in the House, was finally passed, 44 to 27.  So a mean intrigue was defeated most signally, and I came off triumphant.”

“April 27. This you will recognize by the date is my birthday; 36 years old.  Only think, I shall never be 26 again.  Don’t you wish you were as young as I am?  Well, if feelings determined age I should be in reality what I have above stated, but that leaf in the family Bible, those boys and that daughter, those nieces and nephews of younger brothers, and especially that grandson, they all concur in putting twenty years more to those 36.  I cannot get them off; there they are 56!...