“His home training, in New England, was of the kind that has developed so many able men in the history of our country.
“He very early entered in business, but a few months afterwards, through no fault or action of his, his firm became insolvent, and although from his youth and small capital he was to a certain extent exempt from the responsibility, he showed his nice sense of honor by devoting his first earnings afterwards to the payment of principal and interest of all the debts of the firm with which he had been connected. Years afterwards, when he had been most successful in his chosen line of enterprise, owing to the disturbed condition of affairs he again became involved in business difficulties, but with the same pluck and courage he resumed his work, and paid principal and interest on all his indebtedness.
“But no details of ordinary business could confine his wide grasp of affairs, and he took hold of telegraph and cable with a faith and energy which deserved success.
“Time and distance were as nothing to him on carrying out his projects. Although a loyal and enthusiastic American, he was, in the best sense, a ‘citizen of the world.’ I remember meeting him many years ago in southern Europe, and asking him to join some excursion for the following day. He told me how much pleasure it would give him, but that he unfortunately had to attend a meeting the next day. I found that he left that night by the fast express, and rushed through to London to spend two hours at a meeting of a committee, and without rest returned immediately to the place where I had met him.
“His last years were crowded with sorrow and disappointment, under circumstances most pathetic and terrible. In all of this he had the warm sympathy of loving friends and of all his business associates.
“I have felt that the terrific strain upon his whole system during the thirteen years of trial, when the efforts were being made to lay the cable, with their alternations of hope and fear and the great exposure, told upon his constitution more than he knew, and that when the reaction came he had not, perhaps, the same clearness of vision and wise power of judgment as before.
“All the disappointment and sadness of his later life will be forgotten, and history will only remember the great loyal American, whose intense power and large faith enabled him to carry through one of the greatest and most beneficial enterprises the world has ever known.”
“Ah, me! how dark the discipline of pain
Were not the suffering followed by the sense
Of infinite rest and infinite release!
This is our consolation; and again
A great soul cries to us in our suspense:
‘I came from martyrdom unto this peace!’ ”
THE END