We find in Mr. McCarthy’s History of Our Own Times these words:
“Just before the adjournment of Parliament for the recess a great work of peace was accomplished, perhaps the only work of peace then possible which could be mentioned after the warlike business of Sadowa without producing the effect of an anti-climax. This was the completion of the Atlantic cable....
“Ten years, all but a month, had gone by since Mr. Cyrus W. Field, the American promoter of the Atlantic telegraph project, had first tried to inspire cool and calculating men in London, Liverpool, and Manchester with some faith in his project. He was not a scientific man; he was not the inventor of the principle of inter-oceanic telegraphy; he was not even the first man to propose that a company should be formed for the purpose of laying a cable beneath the Atlantic....
“But the achievement of the Atlantic cable was none the less as distinctly the work of Mr. Cyrus W. Field as the discovery of America was that of Columbus. It was not he who first thought of doing the thing, but it was he who first made up his mind that it could be done, and showed the world how to do it, and did it in the end. The history of human invention has not a more inspiriting example of patience living down discouragement and perseverance triumphing over defeat....
“At last, in 1866, the feat was accomplished, and the Atlantic telegraph was added to the realities of life. It has now become a distinct part of our civilized system. We have ceased to wonder at it. We accept it and its consequent facts with as much composure as we take the existence of the inland telegraph or the penny post.”
Before the two weeks were passed the Great Eastern was at sea and on her way to recover the cable lost the year before, and from his diary we copy these short extracts:
“Thursday, August 9th.
“The Great Eastern and Medway left Heart’s Content at noon.”