Thus the inventor, who had hoped so much from the energy and business acumen of his own countrymen, found that the conditions at home differed not much from those which he had found so exasperating abroad.  Praise in plenty for the beauty and simplicity of his invention, but no money, either public or private, to enable him to put it to a practical test.  His associates had left him to battle alone for his interests and theirs.  F.O.J.  Smith was in Portland, Maine, attending to his own affairs; Professor Gale was in the South filling a professorship; and Alfred Vail was in Philadelphia.  No one of them, as far as I can ascertain, was doing anything to help in this critical period of the enterprise which was to benefit them all.

When credit is to be awarded to those who have accomplished something great, many factors must be taken into consideration.  Not only must the aspirant for undying fame in the field of invention, for instance, have discovered something new, which, when properly applied, will benefit mankind, but he must prove its practical value to a world constitutionally skeptical, and he must persevere through trials and discouragements of every kind, with a sublime faith in the ultimate success of his efforts, until the fight be won.  Otherwise, if he retires beaten from the field of battle, another will snatch up his sword and hew his way to victory.

It must never be forgotten that Morse won his place in the Hall of Fame, not only because of his invention of the simplest and best method of conveying intelligence by electricity, but because he, alone and unaided, carried forward the enterprise when, but for him, it would have been allowed to fail.  With no thought of disparaging the others, who can hardly be blamed for their loss of faith, and who were of great assistance to him later on when the battle was nearly won, I feel that it is only just to lay emphasis on this factor in the claim of Morse to greatness.

It will not be necessary to record in detail the events of the year 1840.  The inventor, always confident that success would eventually crown his efforts, lived a life of privation and constant labor in the two fields of art and science.  He was still President of the National Academy of Design, and in September he was elected an honorary member of the Mercantile Library Association.  He strove to keep the wolf from the door by giving lessons in painting and by practising the new art of daguerreotypy, and, in the mean time, he employed every spare moment in improving and still further simplifying his invention.

He heard occasionally from his associates.  The following sentences are from a letter of Alfred Vail’s, dated Philadelphia, January 13, 1840:—­

Friend S.F.B.  Morse,