INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



be endowed with remarkable energy, patience, self- 

 reliance, and penetrating mental vision; and these, 

 under the command of superior judgment, led by fear- 

 less ambition, were to be pressed into action by present 

 obscurity and neglect; the contrast between the shades 

 of surrounding poverty and resplendent glory in an- 

 ticipation of attaining what the best efforts of the ablest 

 minds had failed to do, was to constantly bear upon 

 him, and resist the discouraging effects of successive 

 disappointments. This was Elias Howe, Jr., and he 

 was destined to become, as results show he was, one 

 of the greatest inventors of his age, and, through his 

 invention, one of the greatest benefactors of his race. 



"He espoused the great and benevolent cause of 

 putting the world in possession of the art of machine- 

 sewing. He was protected from the discouraging 

 effects of the results of others' efforts by being kept 

 in ignorance of them. He was not to know of the 

 abortions of Greenough, Corlis, and Thimonnier, or 

 of the experiments of Hunt. He struck out a new 

 course for research and experiment, gradually over- 

 came the difficulties which presented themselves and 

 at length succeeded in exhibiting the trophy of com- 

 plete success. And what was it ? What did it consist 

 of? What rendered it a thing of so much power and 

 value? The answer is, that it consisted of bringing 

 together for the first time, and organizing in harmoni- 

 ous and effective relations, the great, essential features 

 indispensable to a practical sewing-machine." 



This invention of Howe's combined the eye-pointed 

 needle with the shuttle for forming the stitch and the 



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