The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

While these demonstrations continued, every opposing voice was hushed in the chorus of national rejoicing; yet some there were, no doubt, who looked on with silent envy or whispered detraction. But who could grudge these honors to the hero of the hour--honors so hardly won, and which, as it proved, were soon to give place to harsh censures and unjust imputations? Alas for all human glory! Its paths lead but to the grave. Death is the end of human ambition. The very day that a whole city rose up to do honor to the Atlantic Telegraph and its author, it gave its last throb, and that first cable was thenceforth to sleep for ever silent in its ocean grave.