The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1857-09-08
GdalstiIls Bully Saurnal.
Extract From ME-. Everesps Orasion.
TIE Ocean ZslegrapA and tie Poems Z

Extract From ME-. Everest's Oration.
Tie Ocean Telegraph and tie Poems OF
Homer.
The oration delivered BY Hon. Edward
Everett, at st. Louis, on OCCASION of the
Inauguration Of the Washington Univer-
sity Of the State of Missouri, Of which
the material parts were repeated at Cam.
bridge, in the address before the Alumni
Association Of Harvard College, is now
in the press of Messrs. Little, Brown &
Co. We are grati6ed to be able to lay
before our readers this morning, in ad-
vance ofits publication. an extract made
from the proof.sheets, and have selected
for this purpose, IS possessing peculiar
interest at the present moment, the
beautiful passage, in which the wonders
Of the ocean telegraph are compared
with the wonders Of language, Is illus
trated by the preservation Of the poems
Of Homer during thirty centuries.
Etfraa from tie Oration.
Such is language. the representative OF
thought. Dwell upon it pray you, a
moment longer; it is great mystery Of
our being. By the use Of q few written
or printed lines on paper, so like each
other, that, in languages with which we
are neutrality-suspicious. Malay or Japa-
nese manuscript,-there seems scarce
any difference between them; this uD.
seen, intangible. mysterious mental es-
sence. compared with which a perfume,
sound, lunar rainbow is gross and ma
terial, expresses itself to the eye; by the
gentle impulse, the soft vibrations, which
the lips ilnpart to the elastic air it ex-
presses itself to the ear. To give the
spoken word duration, translate it into
written Characteristic give the written
sign vital emphasis, I translate it into
vocal speech. By one divine art, the
dead letter. charged with living mean
ing, sounds through echoing halls, and
wins or storms its way to sympathetic
hearts; by another. the feeting wavelets
of the air are crystalized into . most
marvellous permanence, and become i'm
perishable gems ofthought, whose lustre
no lapse of time can obscure; while, BY
the union of both, this incomprehensible
being. the mind, gently woed from the
vestal chambers Of our Utmost nature,
comes forth like bride adorned for her
lordly spouse, the word; clad in the rich
vesture of conversation. of argument, of
eloquence, Of poetry, of song, to walk
with him the busy or the secluded paths
Of life, to instruct and delight the living
generations; ethereal essences rs they
are, to outlive columns of brass and
pyramids Of granite; and to descend in
eternal youth the unending highways o.
the ages.
Does it seen much that the skill of men
has, in these later days, contrived the
means Of communicating intelligence al
most with the rapidity Of thought, a.
cross the expsnse of continents and be-
meath the depth Of oceans by the electric
wiref That message despatched from
Boston at midday. will 50 far out travel
the sun Is to reach st. Louis an hour be-
fore he arrives at that meridian? 1t is
much, and we contemplate with Just q.
mazement the wonderful apparatus
which, when laid down, as sooner or Ia
ter it perhaps will be. so as to connect
the three continents, may, by possibility,
send The beginning of such sentence as
/ am now pronouncing around the terra
queous globe and return it to the lips of
the speaker. before he bad completed its
utterance.-But this amazing apparatus
is but another form oflanguage; it trans.
mits intelligence only as it transmits
words. 1t is like speech, like the pen,
like the press, another piece Of machine
~ by which language is conveyed from
place to place. The really wonderful
thing is slanguage itself by which thought
is made sensible and communicated from
mind to mind, not only in the great living
congregation Of the civilized world for
the time being, but through the vast
general assembly of the ages, BY which
we are able at this moment, not only to
listen to all the great utterances which
express the thoughts and emotions of
the present day throughout the world,
but to soar with Milton to the green
fields of Paradise in the morning Of crca-
ton; to descend with Dante to the depths
Of penal woe: to listen to the thunders of
Tully and Demosthenes, and, by the gold
en- chain OF etymology. trace the affiin.
ity and descent of nations back, through
the labyrinth of the past, almost to the
cradle oil the race.
l hold in my hand q portion of the
identical electrical cable given me by nv
friend. Mr.. Peabody. which is now IN
progress of manufacture, to connect
America with Europe. Tread upon it
the following words: "a part of the sub
marine electric telegraph cable, manufac.
tured by Messrs. Glass & Co., ofLondon.
for the Atlantic Telegraph Company, to
connect St. Johns, Newfoundland. with
Valencia, Ireland, distance Of sixteen
hundred and forty nautical, or nineteen
hundred statute miles" Does it seem |
AL but incredible to you that intelligence
should travel for two thousand miles a.
long those slender copper wires. far down
in the all but athonless Atlantic, never
before penetrated by aught pertaining to
humanity, save when some laundering
vessel has plunged with her hapless com-
pany to the eternal silence and darkness
Of lhcabyss? Does it seem, l say. all
oc.-S xhat kha fhourbte of