312 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT-II 



troubles from men of pretended science, from selfish men, 

 from stupid men all chronicled by him without the slight- 

 est bitterness against any human being, yet with a quaint 

 humor which made the story very enjoyable. 



Through his personal history, as I then began to learn 

 it, ran a thread, or rather a strong cord, of stoicism. 

 He had clung with such desperate tenacity to his faith in 

 the future of the telegraphic system, that, sooner than part 

 with his interest in it, even when its stock was utterly dis- 

 credited, he suffered from poverty, and almost from want. 

 While pressing on his telegraphic construction, he had been 

 terribly wounded in a Western railroad accident, but had 

 extricated himself from the dead and dying, and, as I 

 learned from others, had borne his sufferings without a 

 murmur. At another time, overtaken by ship-fever at 

 Montreal, and thought to be beyond help, he had quietly 

 made up his mind that, if he could reach a certain hydro- 

 pathic establishment in New York, he would recover ; and 

 had dragged himself through that long journey, des- 

 perately ill as he was, in railway cars, steamers, and 

 stages, until he reached his desired haven; and there he 

 finally recovered, though nearly every other person at- 

 tacked by the disease at his Montreal hotel had died. 



Pursuing his telegraphic enterprise, he had been obliged 

 at times to fight many strong men and great combinations 

 of capital; but this same stoicism carried him through: 

 he used to say laughingly that his way was to "tire them 

 out." 



When, at last, fortune had begun to smile upon him, his 

 public spirit began to show itself in more striking forms, 

 though not in forms more real, than in his earlier days. 

 Evidences of this met the eye of his visitors at once, and 

 among these were the fine cattle, sheep, fruit-trees, and 

 the like, which he had brought back from the London 

 Exposition of 1851. His observations of the agricultural 

 experiments of Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamstead in 

 England, and his visits to various agricultural exhibitions, 

 led him to attempt similar work at home. Everything 



