Before the telegraph had demonstrated its practical utility, its inventor
was subjected to ridicule most galling to a sensitive nature, and after
it was a proved success he was vilified by the enemies he was obliged to
make on account of his own probity, and by the unscrupulous men who tried
to rob him of the fruits of his genius; but in this he was only paying
the penalty of greatness, and, as the perspective of time enables us to
render a more impartial verdict, his character will be found to emerge
triumphant.

His versatility and abounding vitality were astounding. He would have
been an eminent man in his day had he never invented the telegraph; but
it is of absorbing interest, in following his career, to note how he was
forced to give up one ambition after another, to suffer blow after blow
which would have overwhelmed a man of less indomitable perseverance,
until all his great energies were impelled into the one channel which
ultimately led to undying fame.

In every great achievement in the history of progress one man must stand
preëminent, one name must symbolize to future generations the thing
accomplished, whether it be the founding of an empire, the discovery of a
new world, or the invention of a new and useful art; and this one man
must be so endowed by nature as to be capable of carrying to a successful
issue the great enterprise, be it what it may. He must, in short, be a
man of destiny. That he should call to his assistance other men, that he
should legitimately make use of the labors of others, in no wise detracts
from his claims to greatness. It is futile to say that without this one
or that one the enterprise would have been a failure; that without his
officers and his men the general could not have waged a successful
campaign. We must, in every great accomplishment which has influenced the
history of the world, search out the master mind to whom, under Heaven,