Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 | Page 4

with their revolving domes, crown the heights at
every centre of civilization, and the mighty telescope, poised on
exquisite mechanism, turns infinite space into a Coliseum, brings its
invisible luminaries close to the astronomer's seat, and reveals the
harmonies and splendors of those distant works of God.
Once the supposed elements were fire, and water, and earth, and air;
once the amber was unique in its peculiar property, and the loadstone in
its singular power. Now chemistry holds in solution the elements and
secrets of creation; now electricity would seem to be the veil which
hangs before the soul; now the magnetic needle, true to the loadstar,
trembles on the sea, to make the mariner brave and the haven sure.
We have by no means exhausted the wonders that have accumulated
upon man, in being accumulated by man. Their enumeration would be
almost endless. But we leave all to mention one, with which there is
nothing of old time to compare. It had no beginning then,--not even a
germ. It is the peculiar leap and development of the age in which we
live. Many things have combined to bring it to pass.
A spirit that had been hid, since the world began, in a coffer of metal
and acid,--the genie of the lightning,--shut down, as by the seal of
Solomon in the Arabian tale, was let loose but the other day, and
commenced to do the bidding of man. Every one found that he could
transport his thought to the ends of the earth in the twinkling of an eye.
That spirit, with its electric wings, soon flew from city to city, and
whithersoever the magnetic wire could be traced through the air, till the
nations of all Europe stood as face to face, and the States of this great

Union gazed one upon another. It made a continent like a household,--a
cluster of peoples like members of a family,--each within hearing of the
other's voice.
But one achievement remained to be performed before the whole world
could become one. The ocean had hitherto hopelessly severed the globe
into two hemispheres. Could man make it a single sphere? Could man,
like Moses, smite the waves with his electric rod, and lead the legions
of human thought across dry shod? He could,--and he did. We all
remember it well. A range of submarine mountains was discovered,
stretching from America to Europe. Their top formed a plateau, which,
lying within two miles of the surface, offered an undulating shoal
within human reach. A fleet of steamers, wary of storms, one day
cautiously assembled midway over it. They caught the monster asleep,
safely uncoiled the wire, and laid it from shore to shore. The
treacherous, dreadful, omnipotent ocean was conquered and bound!
How the heart of the two worlds leaped when the news came! Then,
more than at any time before, were most of us startled into a conviction
of how real progress was,--how tremendous, and limitless, apparently,
the power which God had put into man. Not that this, in itself, was
greater than that which had preceded it, but it was the climax of all. The
mechanical feat awoke more enthusiasm than even the scientific
achievement which was its living soul,--not because it was more
wonderful, but because it dispelled our last doubt. We all began to form
a more definite idea of something great to come, that was yet lying
stored away in the brain,--laid there from the beginning. Like the
Magian on the heights of Moab, as he saw the tents of Israel and the
tabernacle of God in the distance, we grew big with an involuntary
vision, and were surprised into prophecies.
It was wonderful to see the Queen of England, on one side of that
chasm of three thousand miles, wave a greeting to the President, and
the President wave back a greeting to the Queen. But it was glorious to
see that chord quiver with the music and the truth of the angelic song:--
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, Good-will toward
men!"
Soon, however, came a check to the excitement. For above a score of
days was that mysterious highway kept open from Valentia to Trinity
Bay. But then the spell was lost, the waves flowed back, old ocean

rolled on as before, and the crossing messages perished, like the hosts
of Pharaoh in the sea.
That the miracle is ended is no indication that it cannot be repeated. For
the very reason that the now dead, inarticulate wire, like an infant,
lisped and stammered once, it is certain that another will soon be born,
which will live to trumpet forth like the angel of civilization, its
minister of flaming fire! No one should abate a jot from the high hope
excited then. No