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Page 38
The long and short of it is, that whoever can mark distinctions of time
can use this alphabet of long-and-short, however he may mark them. It is
therefore within the compass of all intelligent beings, except those who
are no longer conscious of the passage of time, having exchanged its
limitations for the wider sweep of eternity. The illimitable range of
this alphabet, however, is not half disclosed when this has been said.
Most articulate language addresses itself to one sense, or at most to
two, sight and sound. I see, as I write, that the particular
illustrations I have given are all of them confined to signals seen or
signals heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the few years of its
history, has already shown that it is not restricted to these two
senses, but makes itself intelligible to all. Its message, of course, is
heard as well as read. Any good operator understands the sounds of its
ticks upon the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he sees it As he
lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound the passing message without
striking a light to see it But this is only what may be said of any
written language. You can read this article to your wife, or she can
read it, as she prefers; that is, she chooses whether it shall address
her eye or her ear. But the long-and-short alphabet of Morse and his
imitators despises such narrow range. It addresses whichever of the five
senses the listener chooses. This fact is illustrated by a curious set
of anecdotes,--never yet put in print, I think,--of that critical
despatch which in one night announced General Taylor's death to this
whole land. Most of the readers of these lines probably read that
despatch in the morning's paper. The compositors and editors had read
it. To them it was a despatch to the eye. But half the operators at the
stations _heard_ it ticked out, by the register stroke, and knew it
before they wrote it down for the press. To them it was a despatch to
the ear. My good friend Langenzunge had not that resource. He had just
been promised, by the General himself (under whom he served at Palo
Alto), the office of Superintendent of the Rocky Mountain Lines. He was
returning from Washington over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on a
freight-train, when he heard of the President's danger. Langenzunge
loved Old Rough and Ready,--and he felt badly about his own office, too.
But his extempore train chose to stop at a forsaken shanty-village on
the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at midnight. What does he do, but
walk down the line into the darkness, climb a telegraph-post, cut a
wire, and applied the two ends to his tongue, to _taste_, at the fatal
moment, the words, "Died at half past ten." Poor Langenzunge! he hardly
had nerve to solder the wire again. Cogs told me that they had just
fitted up the Naguadavick stations with Bain's chemical revolving disk.
This disk is charged with a salt of potash, which, when the electric
spark passes through it, is changed to Prussian blue. Your despatch is
noiselessly written in dark blue dots and lines. Just as the disk
started on that fatal despatch, and Cogs bent over it to read, his
spirit-lamp blew up,--as the dear things will. They were beside
themselves in the lonely, dark office; but, while the men were fumbling
for matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a sweet blind
girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from Dr. Howe at South Boston,
bent over the chemical paper, and _smelt_ out the prussiate of potash,
as it formed itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story. Almost
anybody used to reading the blind books can read the embossed Morse
messages with the finger,--and so this message was read at all the
midnight way-stations where no night-work is expected, and where the
companies do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow circle of
acquaintance, therefore, there were these simultaneous instances, where
the same message was seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So
universal is the dot-and-line alphabet,--for Bain's is on the same
principle as Morse's.
The reader sees, therefore, first, that the dot-and-line alphabet can be
employed by any being who has command of any long and short symbols,--be
they long and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept his accounts
with, or long and short waves of electricity, such as these which
Valentia is sending across to the Newfoundland bay, so prophetically and
appropriately named "The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope the reader sees
that the alphabet can be understood by any intelligent being who has any
one of the five senses left him,--by all rational men, that is,
excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both taste and
smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's telegraph is by no
means confined to the small clique who possess or who understand
electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the _Gymnotus
electricus_ that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the sea
can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only note the
difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can listen,
too. If they will only note the difference between long and short, the
eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin the smooth messages
of our Presidents, and the catfish, in his darkness, look fearless on
the secrets of a Queen. Any beast, bird, fish, or insect, which can
discriminate between long and short, may use the telegraph alphabet, if
he have sense enough. Any creature, which can hear, smell, taste, feel,
or see, may take note of its signals, if he can understand them. A tired
listener at church, by properly varying his long yawns and his short
ones, may express his opinion of the sermon to the opposite gallery
before the sermon is done. A dumb tobacconist may trade with his
customers in an alphabet of short-sixes and long-nines. A beleaguered
Sebastopol may explain its wants to the relieving army beyond the line
of the Chernaya, by the lispings of its short Paixhans and its long
twenty-fours.
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