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1
378
The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph
·
Henry M. Field
268
But
for
the
present
all
was
over.
The
attempt
must
be
abandoned
for
the
year
1865,
but
not
for
ever;
and
with
this
purpose
in
her
constant
mind,
the
Great
Eastern
swung
sullenly
around,
and
turned
her
imperial
head
toward
England,
like
a
warrior
retiring
from
the
field--not
victorious,
nor
yet
defeated
and
despairing,
but
with
her
battle-flag
still
flying,
and
resolved
once
more
to
attempt
the
conquest
of
the
sea.
FOOTNOTES:
[A]
Nearly
a
year
and
a
half
after
this,
when
the
cable
was
safely
landed
in
Newfoundland,
Captain
Anderson,
still
on
board
the
Great
Eastern,
in
a
letter
to
a
friend,
thus
referred
to
his
first
connection
with
the
Atlantic
Telegraph:--
"I
cannot
tell
you
how
I
have
felt
since
our
success.
It
is
only
seventeen
months
since
I
first
walked
up
to
the
top
of
the
paddle-box
of
this
ship
at
Sheerness,
upon
a
dark,
rainy
night--reviewed
my
past
career
in
my
mind,
and
tried
to
look
into
the
future,
to
see
what
I
had
undertaken,
and
realize
if
possible
what
this
new
step
would
develop.
I
cannot
say
I
believed
much
in
cables;
I
rather
think
I
did
not;
but
I
did
believe
Mr.
Field
was
an
earnest
man,
of
great
force
of
character,
and
working
under
a
strong
conviction
that
what
he
was
attempting
was
thoroughly
practicable;
and
I
knew
enough
of
the
names
with
which
he
had
associated
himself
in
the
enterprise
to
feel
that
it
was
a
real,
true,
honest
effort,
worthy
of
all
the
energy
and
application
of
one's
manhood;
and
come
what
might
in
the
future,
I
resolved
to
do
my
very
utmost,
and
to
do
nothing
else
until
it
was
over.
More
completely
however
than
my
resolve
foreshadowed,
I
dropped
inch
by
inch,
or
step
by
step,
into
the
work,
until
I
had
no
mind,
no
soul,
no
sleep,
that
was
not
tinged
with
cable.
In
a
word
I
accuse
Mr.
Field
of
having
dragged
me
into
a
vortex,
that
I
could
not
get
out
of,
and
did
not
wish
to
try--and
the
sum
total
of
all
this
is,
to
lay
a
thread
across
an
ocean!
Dr.
Russell
compared
it
to
an
elephant
stretching
a
cobweb,
and
there
lay
its
very
danger:
the
more
you
multiply
the
mechanism,
the
more
you
increase
the
risk."
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