Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1892-05-31
IN TIE ELECTRIC WAY.
External or Superficial View and Some
thing About Our Personal Electricity.
tChaTies Dudley Warner In the Rlitors Drawer

thing About Our Personal Electricity.
lCharies Dudley Warner In the Eiitors Drawer
IN Harpers Magazine for Jane.l
We are quite in the electric way. We
boast that we have made electricity our
slave, hut the slave whom We do not ur-
derstani ~ our master. And before we
know him we shall be transformed. Mr..
try at the rate of 100 miles an hour. This
pieases us. because we fancy we shall
save time and because We are taught That
the chief object in life is TO get
there" quickly. We really bsve an idea
that il is gain TO annihilate distance. for
getting that as matter OF personal expe-
renee we are already too near most peo-
pie. But thus speed by ran VIII enable US
70 live in Philadelphia and do business IN
New York. IL will make the city ut Chlca-
60 200 miles square. Aud the bigger Chica-
90 is the more important the world be
comes. This pleasing antlcipation-thaf
of travelling by lightning, ana all being
huddled together-is nothing to the
promised universal illumination by
diffusod light that shall make midnight az
bright as MONDAY. We shall then save all
the time there il. and at the age OF 30
have lived the allotted 70 years, and
long. if not for GoiordGmme7m7, at
least for some world where. by touching a
button, we can discharge our limbs OF
electricity and take little repose. Inc
most restless and ambitious OF as can
hardly conceive of Chicago as desirable
future state of existence.
This, however, is only the external or
superficial view OF the sublect-at the
best. II is only symbolical. Nr. Edison IS
wasting his time i'll objective experiments.
while we are in the deepest ignorance as
to our electric personality or our personal
electricity. We begin TO spprehend that
we are electric beings, that those outward
manifestations of a subtle form are onlV
hints of our internal state. Mr.. Edison
should turn his attention from physics
10 humanity electrically considered in us
social condition. We have heard great
deal about ahinities. Neare told that one
person Is positive and another negative.
ard that representing socially opposite
poles they should come together and make
an electric harmony. that two positives or
two INCENTIVES reDel each other, and II con-
ventionally united end in divorce, and so
on. We read that such man is magnetic,
meaning that be can poll great many
votes: or that such woman thrilled
her audience. meaning probably that they
were IN an electric condltlon 10 oe
shocked by her. Now this is wAat we
want to find QUITO know If persons ere
really magnetic or sympathetic, and how
10 tell whether a person Is positive or
incentive In politics we are quite at
sea. What is the good OF sending
man to Washington at the rate OF q
hundred miles an hour if we are
uncertain Of his electric state! The
| ideal House of Representatives ought to
be pretty nearly balanced-half positive,
half negative. Some congresses seem TO
be made no pretty much OF negatives.
| The time for the electrician 10 test the
candidate IS before he is put in nomina-
tion-not dump him into Congress as we
| DO now-utterly ignorant OF whether MS
currents run from his heels 20 his head or
from his head to his heels, uncertain,
indeed. as to whether he has magnetism to
run in at all. Nothing could be more un'
scientific than the process and the result