Richmond enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1815-1867, 1857-09-15
MISCELLANEOUS.

n CYU[6b5 E6dlu- pau-e ot0l
The end Of Human hope and fear.
MISCELLANEOUS.
MR.. EVERETT UPON LANGUAGE AND THE
TELEGRAPH.
The following is Oil extract from an Grafton deliver.
ed by Mr.. Everett on the inauguration Of the Wash.
ington University at st. Louis:
such is language, the representative of thought.
Dwell upon it, l pray yoH a moment longer; 1t Is a
great mystery Of our being. BY the use OF q few
that ia languages with which We are unfamiliar
witness q Malay or a Japanese manuscript-there
seems scarce any difference between them; this un-
seen, intangible, mysterious mental essence, COM
pared with which a perfume, sound, q lunar rainbow
is gross and material, expresses itself to the eye; 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 duration, ! translate 1t into
written character; to give the written sign a vital
emphasis, I translate it into vocal speech. BY one
divine art, the dead letter, charged with q living
meaning, sounds through echoing halls, and wins or
storms its way to sympathetic hearts; oy another,
the hsetiuR wavslets of the air are crystalized into
a most marvellous permanence, and become imper.
ishable gems Of thought, whose lustre no lapse Of
time can obscure; while, by the union of both, this
incomprehsnsible being, the mind, gently woed from
the ysstal chambers Of our Utmost nature, comes
forth like a briae adorned for her lordly spouse, the
world; clad in ths rich vesture of conversation, OF
argument, Of eloquence, of poetry, Of song; to walk
with him tho busy VI the secluded paths Of life; to in.
struct and delight the living
essences as ~theysare, to outlive columns of brass aud
pyramids Of grauite; and 10 descend in eternal youth
the u~neuding highways OF the ages:
Does il IN much that the skill of men has, in
thess latter DAYS, contrived the means of communi.
eating intelligence almost with the rapidly of thought
scrors the eIpanss Of continents aud beneath the
depth Of oceans by the electric wire7 That q NEE.
sage despatched from Boston at midday will 30 far
n 49, -. a. -AanI 60 Inttta an h4na ha
lore he arrives at that meridian. 1t 10 much, and We
contemplate with just amszement the wonderful ap-
psrstus which, when laid down, as sooner or later it
perhaps will be, 80 as to connect the three continents,
may, by possibility. send the beginning OF such a
sentence as | am now prOnouncing around the terra
queous globe and return it to the lips OF the speaker
before he had completed its utterance. But this anna
ling apparatus ls but another form Of language; ii
transmits intelligence only as il transmits words. 1t
is like speech. like the pen, like the press, another
piece OF machinery by which language is conveyed
from place to place. The really wonderful thing is
language itself, by which thought 10 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 as
sembly OF the ages, by which we are able at this mo
ment, not only TO listen TO all the great utterances
which express the thoughts and emotions Of the pre-.
sent day throughout the world, but to soar with Mil
ton to the green fields of Paradise in the morning of
creation; to descend with Dante to the depths Of pc.
nal woe; to listen to the thunders Of FULLY and De-
mOsthHneS, ana, Dy tho SolOen Cn6tn OF 6tym0l0gy,
trace the afinity and descent of nations back through
the labyrinth OF the past, almost to the cradle Of the
race.
II bold in my hand a portion Of the identical cleo.
trical cable eivsh me by my friend, Mr.. Peabody,
which is now in progress of manufacture, to connect
America With Europe. l read upon it the following
words: A part of the submarine electric telegraph
cable. manufactured by Messrs. Glass & Co., of Lon.
don, for the Atlantic Telegraph Company, to connect
S. Johns, Newfoundland, with Valencia, Ireland, q
distance of 1910 nautical, or 1900 statute miles. Does
it seem all but incredible to you that intelligence
should travel for 2,0U0 miles, along those slender
copper wires, far down in the all but fatho,nless At.
lantic, never before penetrated by aught pertaining
to humanity, save when some laundering vessel has
plunged with her hapless company to the eternal
silence aud darkness Of the abyss? Does il seem, l
say, all but q miracle OF art, that the thoughts OF
living men-the thoughts that we think up here on
the esrth's surface, in the cheerful light Of day-about
the markets and the exchanges, and the seasons, and
the eleclions, and the treaties, and the wars, and all
the fond nothings Of daily life, should clothe them
selves with elemental sparks. and shoot with fiery
speed in a moment, in the t%wipkling of an eye, from
hemisphere to hemisphere, far down among the un-
couth monsters that wallow in the neither seas, along
the wreck.paved floor, through the oozy dungeons Of
the rayless deep; that tho last intelligence of the
crops, whose dancing tassels will IN a few months be
coquetting with the West wind of these boundless
prairiee, should 90 flashing along the slimy decks OF
old sunker galleons, which have been rotting for
ages; that messages of friendship and love, from
warm living boeoms, should burn over the cold green
bones of men aud women whose hearts, once a. warm
as ours, burst as the eternal CULTS closed and roared
over them, centuries eRoi Behold another phenome.
non of a surety not less surprisng-sn intellectual
electrical telegraph-if l may so call it-not less mar
veiious. The little volume which I hold in my hand
contains the two immortal poems Of Homer, those
world renowned stratus which one OF The imperial
minds Of our race, not far from thirty centuries ago,
poured forth in the delighted ears Of heroic Greece,
while the softest down of youth'was upon the cheek
of it's young nationality-those glowing golden le-
s~ends-that sovereign wrath of Achilles. which
Shall burn unquenchably,
Until the eternal doom shall be;
the parting of Hector and A~ndromache-a scene of
which the sad experience of three thousand years
could not add one image Of tenderness and sorrow;
the threats Of Jupiter to the awe struck gods, while
every peak Of Olympus was aolazs with his lsaping
kissing the hand and bathing with his tears the feet
of the cruel ~ohieftain who had dragged the torn body
of his noble son three tunes round the llian walls;
the weary and sorrowful warnings Of Ulysses, which
every subsequent age Of mankind has retraoed with
delight-thesea all, like the cunningly imprisoned airs
Of q musical box, breathe to US in one perennial strain
OF melody from within the covers of this small vo-
lume. BY the simple agency Of twenty-four little
marks. stamped on tbs written or the printed page,
I'll. immortal legend has flashed down to US through
the vicissitudes Of empires and eras; across the vast
exoause of enlightened aud ben'ghted periods of his.
tory from region to region, from his own rocky islet
i'll the Eyesn TO shores unknown, undreamsd of by
him; beneath the overwhelming pillows of three
thousand years, where peoples whole have sunk; and
it now binds together, BY the golden wires of intel
lect and taste, the minds Of Europe and America; at
this meridian of refinement, with the mind of every
intervening age of literary culture, back TO the era
die Of iufsnt Greece. And while, at our places Of
education, We diligently investigate the wonderful
properties of matter developed in the phenomena OF
- physical word, shall we not, my friends, deem a
portion Of our time and attention well bestowed upon
tho miracles Of the cord, written and spoAea-the
pheuomeua Of language, which lie at the foundation
oi I'll our Intellectual Improvement, of all our litera'
turo aud science /; IL a word, Of all national commu.
nicatiou o-swetc man and man -
.Auxil ~ ~