Arkansas true Democrat., 1857-10-06
MT. Everett upon Language and the Tele.
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 ! ne following Is an extract from an oration delivered by Mir. Everett on the inauguration of the Washington University at St. Louis: Such Is language, the representative of thought. Dwell upon it, 1 pray you. mo- ment longer; It IS great mystery of our beinq. | By the of few written or printed lines on 1 paper, so like each other, that in languages with which we arc nfamiliar-witness Malay or | Japanese manuscrpt-there seems scarce 1 any difference between them; this unseen ip- ! tangible, mysterious mental essence, compared
 with which perfume, sound, lunar rainbow Is gross and material, presses itself to the eve; by the gentle impulse, the soft vibrations which the lips impart to the elastic air it expresses itself to the ear. To give the spoken word du- | ratlon translate it into written character; to | give the written sign a vital emphasis trans l late 1t into vocal speech. By one divine art, the dead letter, charged with a living meaning sounds through echoing halls, and wins or storms its way to sympathetic hearts; by anoth- CT, the tleeting wavees of the air are crystali- | zed Into a most marvellous permanence, and become lmpershable goms of thought, whose l lustre no lapse of time can obscure; while by l the un:on ot both, this comprehensible beng | the mind, gently woed from the vestal cham | bers of our inmost nature comes forth like a bride adorned for her lordly spouse, the world; clad in the rich vesture of conversation, of ar gument, of eloquence, of poetry, of song; to walk with him the busy or the secluded paths of life; to instruct and delight the living gen. erations--ethereal essences as they are, to out live columns of brass and pyramids of granite and to descend in eternal youth the amending highways of the ages.
 | Does 1t seem much that the skill of men has, In these latter days contrived the means of communicating intelligence almost with the rapldlty of thought across the expanSe of con- tnents and beneath the depth of oceans by the electric wire? That message despatched from Boston at midday will so far out-trave | the sun as to reach St. Louis an hour before he arrives at that meridian. It is much, and we contemplate with just amazement the wonder full apparatus which, when laid down, as soon- CT or later 1t perhaps will be- so as to connect the three continents, may by possibility send the beginning of such sentence as 1 am now pronouncing around tue terraqueous globe and return 1t to the lips of the speaker before he had completed it's utterance But this anna zlng apparatus Is but another form of language, It transmits intelligence only as 1t transmits words. It is like speech, ike the pen, like the press, another piece of machinery by which language Is conveyed from place to place. The really wonderful thing Is language ltself by which thought is made sensibIe and communi- cated from mind 10 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 ill the morning of creation; to descend with Dante to the depths of penal woe; to listen to the thunders of Fully and DemostheneS, and, by the golden chain of ct ymology, trace the affinity and descent of tons back through the labyrinth of the past, almost to the cradle of the race.
 hold in my hand portion of the ilent- cal electrical cable given me by my friend, MT. Peabody, which Is noW* in progress of mauu- lacture, to connect America with Europe. read upon it the following words: A part of l the submarine electric telegraph cable mauu- fActured by NJ Meaars Glass d. Co.,, of London, for the Atlantic Telegraph Company, to con meet St Johns, Newfoundland, with Valencia | Ireland, a distance of 16 10 nautical, or 1900 | statute miles, Does 1t oeem all but incredible to you that iutclli 5euce should travel for 2,OOO miles, along those slender copper wires, far down ill the all but iathomess Atlantic never l before penetrated bv aught pertaining to hu- | manity save when some iounderng vessel has 1 plunged with her hapless company to the eter | nal silence and darkness of the abyss? Does it seem, l say all but d miracle of art, that the thoughts of living meu-the thoughts that | we think up here on the earth's surface, iu the l cheerful light of day-about the markets and | the exchanges, and the seasons, and the cleo | and ba and na and all the | fond nnthings of daily life, should cothe them | selves with elemental sparks, and shoot with | fiery speed in a momout, iH the twinkling of l an eye, from hemisphere to hemisphere, far | down among the uncouth monsters that wal | low Tn the neither seas, along the wreck-paved floor. through the oozy dungeons of the ray ess | deep; that the last intelligence of the crops, l whose dancing tassels will in few months be | coquetting with the west wind of these bound | less praIrles, should go flashing along the slimy | decks of old sunken galleonS, W hich have been | rotting for ages that messages of friendship | and love, from warm living bosoms, should | burn over the cold green bones of men and | women, whose hearts, once as warm as ours,
 burst as the eternal gufs closed and roared
 over them, centuries ago? Behold another phenomenon of surety not less surprising an intellectual clectrica! telegraph-if l may so call l-lot less marvellous. The httle vol tune which hold in my hand contains the two 1 immortal poems of Homer, those world-re-
 uowned strains which one of the imperial
 minds of race, not far from thirty centuries | ago, poured forth n the delighted ears of heroic
 Greece, while the soltest down of youth was
 upon the cheek of its young uatiouaity-thoae l glowing golden legeuds-that sovereign wrath 1 of Achilles, which
 Shall burn unquenchaby,
 Until the eternal dcom shall be;
 the parting of Hector and Andromache--a scene
 of which the sad experience of three thousand
 years could not add one image of tenderness
 aud sorrow; the threats of Jubiter to the awe
 struck gods, while every peak of Olympus was
 abllze with hi, edplng thanlerS the piteous
 suppications of agel Priam, kissing the hand
 and bathing with his tears the feet of tn. cruel
 chetan who had dragged the torn body of his
 noble son three times round the Ian walls ;
 the weary and sorrowful warnings of Ulysses,
 which every subsequent age of mankind has | retraced with dehght-these all, like the cun- | nlngly imprisoned airs of musical box, breathe
 to Us in one perennial strain of melody from
 within the covers of this small volume. By
 the simple agency of twenty four little marks,
 stamped on the written or the printed page,