Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/175

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The chills have been treating me so badly, in spite of the sun-flowers, that I declined, yesterday, a most inviting invitation to accompany the directors of the Atlantic Submarine Telegraph Company in a nice steamer, on a tour of inspection as far as Newfoundland, to select the terminus there, and other matters. They are to set off on the 1st of August.

What you say about Colonel Smith illustrates my doctrine about great men, for all useful men are great; it's the talent of industry that makes a man. I don't think that so much depends upon intellect as is generally supposed; but industry and steadiness of purpose, they are the things. . . . By the way, Smith invites Major Mordecai and myself, in the name of the State, to visit Lexington next June as a Board of Examiners. Before answering, I wanted to know what would be expected of us—to examine the boys, and show ourselves off at their expense? If so, then I can't go; on the contrary, if it be to look on and form our own judgment of teachers, instruction, and pupils, then the case will be different.

My thoughts dwell with you, and my heart, brimful of the most tender and affectionate solicitude, clings to you. Alone in my room, there is something which keeps you ever present. The step you are about to take is the step of life—with a woman it certainly is such.

You have given your hand to a young man of irreproachable character, of an amiable disposition, and a cultivated mind, and were it not that he is of kin, the match would be as free from objection and quite as promising as need be.

That you are both poor is no ground of solicitude; happiness is above riches, and if you are not happy, being poor, wealth would not, I apprehend, make you happy. Poverty has its virtues, and my struggles with it are full of pleasant