Rather a singular coincidence took place when I was interesting
myself in this matter which possibly may be not too trivial
to record. One Thanksgiving morning I received by express
a beautiful copy of Wordsworth, which I had bought in Boston
the day before. Just as I was opening it the morning mail
was brought in. I opened the book at random and turned to
Wadsworth's poem, "The Highland Broach." My eye caught the
following lines:
Lo! Ships from seas by nature barred,
Mount along ways by man prepared;
Along far stretching vales, whose streams
Seek other seas, their canvas gleams,
And busy towns grow up on coasts
Thronged yesterday by airy ghosts.
I turned by eye from these verses to the mail in which was
a copy of a New York illustrated journal containing an account
of the Eads ship-railway.
The inscription in Eads's "History of the Jetties," above
referred to, is as follows:
To Hon. George F. Hoar, who, as a member of the House Committee
which matured the Jetty Act, prepared the _first report_ in
its favor, this book is presented; with the assurance that
his unfaltering support of the enterprise through all its
struggles, entitled him to a prominent place among the statesmen
to whom the producers in the Valley of the Mississippi are
most largely indebted.
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