the rosy clouds,—and this vibration of the wires is a sort of loose jangling accompaniment of their unpractised hands on earth. The voice is always above the strings.—This I thought in my semi-mesmeric condition, perhaps. I soon laughed at my Brobdignagian nonsense, and said,—There is a telegraphic despatch passing. Now if I could only find out what it is!—that would be something new in science,—a discovery worth knowing,—to be able to hear or feel the purport of a telegraphic message, simply by touching the wire along which it runs!
So, regardless of any electric shock I might receive, I thrust out my hand through the leaves of the tree, and boldly grasped the wire. The jerks instantly were experienced in my elbow, and it was not long before certain short sentences were conveyed, magnetically, to my brain. In my amazement at the discovery, I almost dropped out of the tree. However, I kept firm hold of the wire, and my sensorium made me aware of something passing like this:—"Market active. Fair demand for exchange. Transactions from five to ten thousand shares. Aristides railroad-stock scarce. Rates of freight to Liverpool firm. Yours respectfully, Grabber and Holdham."
Upon my word, said I, this is rather dry!—only a merchant! I expected something better than this, to commence with.
The wire being now quiet, I fell into a musing upon the singular discovery I had made,—and whether I should get anything from the public or the government for revealing it. And then my thoughts wandered across the Atlantic, and I remembered those long rows of telegraphic wires in France, ruled along the tops of high barrier-walls, and looking against the sky like immense music-lines,—and those queer inverted-coffee-cup-like supports for the wires, on the tall posts. Then I thought of music and coffee at the Jardin Mabille. Then my fancy wandered down the Champs Elysées to those multitudinous spider-web wires that radiate from the palace of the Tuileries, where the Imperial spider sits plotting and weaving his meshes around the liberties of France. Then I thought, What a thing this discovery of mine would be for political conspirators,—to reverse the whispering-gallery of Dionysius, and, instead of the tyrant hearing the secrets of the people, the people hearing the secrets of the tyrant! Then I thought of Robespierre, and Marat, and Charlotte Corday, and Marie Antoinette,—then of Delaroche's and Müller's pictures of the unfortunate Queen,—then of pictures in general,—then of landscape-scenery,—till I almost fell into a doze, when I was startled by a faint sound along the wire, as of a sigh, like the first thrill of the AEolian harp in the evening wind. Another message was passing. I reached my hand out to the iron thread. A confused sadness began to oppress me. A mother's voice weeping over her sick child pulsed along the wire. Her husband was far away. Her little daughter lay very ill. "Come quick," said the voice. "I have little hope; but if you were only here, I should be calmer. If she must die, it would be such a comfort to have you here!"
I drew my hand away. I saw the whole scene too vividly. Who this mother was I knew not; but the news of the death of a child whom I knew and loved could not have affected me more strangely and keenly than this semi-articulate sob which quivered along the iron airtrack, in the silence of the evening, from one unknown—to another unknown.
I roused myself from my sadness, and thought I would descend the tree and stroll home. The moon was up, and a pleasant walk before me, with enough to meditate upon in the singular discovery I had made. I was about to get down from my crotch in the tree, and was just reaching out my dexter leg to feel if I could touch a bough below me, when a low, wild shriek ran along the wire,—as when the wind-harp, above referred to for illustration, is blown upon by some
