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��Inventors as Martyrs to Science.
��INVENTORS AS MARTYRS TO SCIENCE. By Kate Sanborn.
��James Watt, the Scottish engineer, who made such important discoveries with steam power, had his share of trials. Wordsworth said of him, " I look upon him, considering both the magnitude and the universality of his genius, as perhaps the most ex- traordinary man England has ever produced."
Yet he was at times ready to curse the steam engine as the cause of all his misfortunes ; — for its sake he had given up a prosperous business, had plunged himself deep in debt, and his wife, who had nobly shared his strug- gle, died from the results of poverty and depression just as he most need- ed her loving sympathy and brave words of encouragement. For some time after her death, when at the door of his humble dwelling, he would pause on the threshold, unable to summon courage to enter the home where he was never more to meet " the comfort of his life." He was subject to despondency and dispep- sia, and his letters were often written in the depths of gloom over his many discouragements and drawbacks. Se- verely tried, he could not relinquish his idea of a working steam engine, and felt impelled to follow it to an issue. Unable to give his mind to any other business until this was a success, he wrote to a friend that he was bar- ren on every other subject. " My whole thoughts," said he, " are bent on this machine. I can think of noth- ing else." After two months of hard labor he set up an engine onlv to find that it leaked in all directions. Then
��his leading mechanic died just as he needed him most. When he seemed to have got the engine into working order the beam broke, and his best workman was gone. This threatened to bring the experiment to an end ; but undaunted, he went slowly on, battling down difficulty inch by inch, strongly convinced that he was on the right track. Everything had to be done stealthily, lest his ideas should be stolen, which greatly in- creased his difficulties ; and he was poor, and knew but few who had suffi- cient faith to care to assist him. His story is full of sickening delays, bit- ter disappointments, and repeated discomfiture.
He ventured to make trial of a larger model. By some unforeseen misfortune, he wrote to a patron, " The mercury found its way into the cylinder, and played the Devil with the solder. This throws us back at least three days, and is very vexa- tious." When he tried to take out a patent, ofl!icials were sluggish and in- different, and he was required to pay heavy fees in order to protect his invention.
His family could not be maintained on hope so long deferred, and while his head was full of his engine his lieart ached with anxiety. At one time his mind, strained and wearied with such long continued applica- tion to a single subject, seemed on the point of breaking down altogether. To his intimate friends Watt be- moaned his many failures, his low spirits, his bad health, and sleepless
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