Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard [142]
16 “I am sick of the Telephone”: Bell to Mabel Bell, September 9, 1878, Bell Family Papers.
17 “hateful to me at all times”: Quoted in Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 88.
18 “first incentive to invention”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 26.
19 “Our earthly hopes”: Alexander Melville Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, May 28, 1870, Bell Family Papers.
20 His mother, who had homeschooled: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 20.
21 “I should probably have sought”: Quoted in Gray, Reluctant Genius, 104.
22 “As far as telegraphy is concerned”: Quoted in ibid., 136.
23 “I wish very much”: Eliza Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, March 7, 1880, Bell Family Papers.
24 “I have my periods”: Bell to Mabel Bell, March 1879, Bell Family Papers.
25 When struggling with an invention: Gray, Reluctant Genius, 3.
26 “wee bit fiddler”: New York Times, January 2, 1905.
27 “musical fever”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 22.
28 Even to Bell’s father: Ibid., 19.
29 “I have serious fears”: Alexander Melville Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, May 19, 1873, Bell Family Papers.
30 “sort of telephonic undercurrent”: Gray, Reluctant Genius, 145.
31 “My mind concentrates itself”: Bell to Mabel Bell, December 12(?), 1885, Bell Family Papers.
32 By 1880, so frustrated: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 283.
33 “I have been almost”: Gardiner Greene Hubbard to Alexander Graham Bell, July 1880, Bell Family Papers.
34 “However hard and faithfully”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 284.
35 In February of 1881: Bell to William Forbes, February 2, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
36 Along with the prize: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 222.
37 Watson had left: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 282.
38 “These are germs”: Bell to Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Bell, January 18, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
39 “functional derangement of the heart”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 341.
40 “Edison was completely absorbed”: Tainter, “The Talking Machine and Some Little Known Facts in Connection with Its Early Development,” 12-A.
41 “I trust you will”: Bell to Mabel Bell, September 9, 1878, Bell Family Papers.
Chapter 7: Real Brutuses and Bolingbrokes
1 At 2:30 in the morning: Garfield, Diary, March 3, 1881, 4:552.
2 “no less than a half-dozen”: Almon F. Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon,” Century Magazine 23(1882), 431.
3 “the staggerings of my mind”: Ibid., March 1, 1881, 4:551.
4 With very few exceptions: During Washington’s first inauguration, which was held in New York City on April 30, 1789, he established the traditions of kissing the Bible after being sworn in to office and using the phrase “So help me God.” For his second inauguration, he delivered the shortest inaugural address in history, at just 135 words.
5 As transportation improved dramatically: The inauguration did not move to January 20 until 1933, when Congress ratified the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution. Although the Twentieth Amendment was ratified on January 23, Franklin D. Roosevelt was still inaugurated on March 4 of that year. It wasn’t until his second inauguration, in 1937, that the January 20 date was established.
6 By the time a crowd: New York Times, February 1, 1881.
7 Just beyond the Mall: Another three years would pass before the Washington Monument was finally finished, and by then the Army Corps of Engineers would have to use a type of marble different from that in the original construction, leaving the top two-thirds of the monument slightly darker than the bottom third.
8 “free from snow”: “A New Chief Magistrate,” New York Times, March 5, 1881.
9 “The momentous question”: New York Times, November 18, 1880.
10 “the very picture”: New York Times, March 5, 1881.
11 “in a deafening chorus”: Ibid.
12 “Low bridge!”: New York Times, December 22, 1907.
13 “James A. Garfield sprung from the people”: New York Times, March 5, 1881.
14 “smile[d] quietly at the hard