"In spite of all I do feel sad. I am no longer young; I have children, but they are orphans, and orphans they are likely to be. I have a country, but no home. It is this no home that perpetually haunts me. I feel as if it were duty, duty most urgent, for me to settle in a family state at all hazards on account of these children. I know they suffer in this forming period of their lives for the want of a home, of the care of a father and a mother, and that no care and attention from friends, be they ever so kind, can supply the place of parents. But all efforts, direct and indirect, to bring this about have been frustrated.
"My dear brother, may you never feel, as I have felt, the loss of a wife. That wound bleeds afresh daily, as if it were inflicted but yesterday. There is a meaning in all these acute mental trials, and they are at times so severe as almost to deprive me of reason, though few around me would suspect the state of my mind."
These last few lines are eminently characteristic of the man. While called upon to endure much, both mentally and physically, he possessed such remarkable self-control that few, if any, of those around him were aware of his suffering. Only to his intimates did he ever reveal the pain which sometimes gnawed at his heart, and then only occasionally and under great stress. It was this self-control, united to a lofty purpose and a natural repugnance to wearing his heart on his sleeve, which enabled him to accomplish what he did. Endowed also with a saving sense of humor, he made light of his trials to others and was a welcome guest in every social gathering.
The want of a place which he could really call home was an ever-present grief. It is the dominant note in almost all the letters to his brothers and his children, and it is rather quaintly expressed in a letter, of November 14, 1838, to his daughter:—
"Tell Uncle Sidney to take good care of you, and to have a little snug room in the upper corner of his new building, where a bed can be placed, a chair, and a table, and let me have it as my own, that there may be one little particular spot which I can call home. I will there make three wooden stools, one for you, one for Charles, and one for Finley, and invite you to your father's house."
In spite of the enthusiasm which the exhibition of his invention aroused among the learned men and others in Paris, he met with obstructions of the most vexatious kind at every turn, in his effort to bring it into practical use. Just as the way seemed clear for its adoption by the French Government, something happened which is thus described in a letter to Mr. Smith, of January 28, 1889:
"I wrote by the Great Western a few days ago. The event then anticipated in regard to the Ministry has occurred. The Ministers have resigned, and it is expected that the new Cabinet will be formed this day with Marshal Soult at its head. Thus you perceive new causes of delay in obtaining any answer from the Government. As soon as I can learn the name of the new Minister of the Interior I will address a note to him, or see him, as I may be advised, and see if I can possibly obtain an answer, or at least a report of the administration of the Telegraphs. Nothing has occurred in other respects but what is agreeable….
"All my leisure (if that may be called leisure which employs nearly all my time) is devoted to perfecting the whole matter. The invention of the correspondent, I think you will say, is a more essential improvement. It has been my winter's labor, and, to avoid expense, I have been compelled to make it entirely with my own hands. I can now give you its exact dimensions—twelve and a half inches long, six and a half wide, and six and a half deep. It dispenses entirely with boxes of type (one set alone being necessary) and dispenses also with the rules, and with all machinery for moving the rules. There is no winding up and it is ready at all times. You touch the letter and the letter is written immediately at the other extremity…. In my next I hope to send you reports of my further progress. One thing seems certain, my Telegraph has driven out of the field all the other plans on the magnetic principle. I hear nothing of them in public or private. No society notices them."
"February 2. I can compare the state of things here to an April day, at one moment sunshine, at the next cloudy. The Telegraph is evidently growing in favor; testimonials of approbation and compliments multiply, and yesterday I was advised by the secretary of the Academie Industrielle to interest moneyed men in the matter if I intended to profit by it; and he observed that now was the precise time to do it in the interval of the Chambers.
"I am at a loss how to act. I am not a business man and fear every movement which suggests itself to me. I am thinking of proposing a company on the same plan you last proposed in your letter from Liverpool, and which you intend to create in case the Government shall choose to do nothing; that is to say, a company taking the right at one thousand francs per mile, paying the proprietors fifty per cent in stocks and fifty per cent in cash, raising about fifty thousand francs for a trial some distance. I shall take advice and let you know the result.