274 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
man had taken a Connecticut bride to the metropolis. There 
had been seven children and sixteen grandchildren. Numer- 
ous friends called on that day to wish happiness to the frail 
old couple. 
From England, Sir James Anderson sent a long letter of con- 
gratulations and good wishes, signed by eighty-four names, 
many of them of prominent persons. Among these were men 
who had been connected with the cable work, such as Samuel 
Canning, William Thomson, Willoughby Smith, Latimer 
Clark, W. H. Russell, Robert Dudley, and H. D. Gooch. 
Other interesting names were the Duke of Argyll, W. E. 
Gladstone, Catherine Gladstone, H. M. Stanley of Alderly, 
Oscar Wilde, Constance Wilde, W. S. Cunard, and Jane Cob- 
den. 
Sir James wrote in conclusion: “The days and years are 
rolling away, and we may well cling to the memory of excit- 
ing and happy days when we were twenty-five to thirty years 
younger and the future filled with nervous anxieties.” He 
himself was sixty-six; he recalled that it had been twenty-five 
years since the first cable-laying in the Great Eastern and fifty 
years since he went to sea as a sailor boy. 
At the golden-wedding celebration, it was evident that both 
Cyrus Field and his wife were in delicate health. During the 
following summer of 1891 the other members of the family 
watched them with grave solicitude. Medical advisers report- 
ed that any sudden excitement might be fatal. 
Late in August, on the birthday of Mrs. Field, the family 
dined together for the last time. David Dudley Field, al- 
though much older than his brother, was able to be present 
with words of cheer and good wishes. The two were as friend- 
ly as ever. Cyrus was frankly affectionate; David retained a 
genuine fondness for his younger brother. 
In these last months of his life, when Cyrus Field deserved 
happiness and quiet, a dreadful series of blows befell him. 
