For want of means I have been compelled to make with my own hands (and to labor for weeks) a piece of mechanism which could be made much better, and in a tenth part of the time, by a good mechanician, thus wasting _time_--time which I cannot recall and which seems double-winged to me.
"'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' It is true and I have known the full meaning of it.

Nothing but the consciousness that I have an invention which is to mark an era in human civilization, and which is to contribute to the happiness of millions, would have sustained me through so many and such lengthened trials of patience in perfecting it.".