would produce the fabric of the alphabet and writing and printing.

"Was there anything required to produce these results which was not known
to Morse?...

"He knew, for he had witnessed it years before, that, by means of a
battery and an electro-magnet, reciprocal motion could be produced. He
knew that the force which produced it could be transmitted along a wire.
He _believed_ that the battery current could be made, through an
electro-magnet, to produce physical results at a _distance_. He saw in
his mind's eye the existence of an agent and a medium by which reciprocal
motion could be not only produced but controlled at a distance. The
question that addressed itself to him at the outset was, naturally, this:
'How can I make use of the simple up-and-down motion of opening and
closing a circuit to write an intelligible message at one end of a wire,
and at the same time print it at the other?'... Like many a kindred work
of genius it was in nothing more wonderful than in its simplicity.... Not
one of the brilliant scientific men who have attached their names to the
history of electro-magnetism had brought the means to produce the
practical registering telegraph. Some of them had ascended the tower that
looked out on the field of conquest. Some of them brought keener vision
than others. Some of them stood higher than others. But the genius of
invention had not recognized them. There was needed an inventor. Now what
sort of a want is this?

"There was required a rare combination of qualities and conditions. There
must be ingenuity in the adaptation of available means to desired ends;
there must be the genius to see through non-essentials to the fundamental
principle on which success depends; there must be a kind of skill in
manipulation; great patience and pertinacity; a certain measure of