Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 by Various

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"So, while the town hummed on as was its wont,
With mill, and wheel, and scythe, and lowing steer
In the green field,--while, round a hundred hearths,
Brown Labor boasted of the mighty deeds
Done in the meadow swaths, and Envy hissed
Its poison, that corroded all it touched,--
Rusting a neighbor's gold, mildewing wheat,
And blistering the pure skin of chastest maid,--
Edwin and Bertha sat in marriage joy,
From all removed, as heavenly creatures winged,
Alit upon a hill-top near the sun,
When all the world is reft of man and town
By distance, and their hearts the silence fills--
Not long: for unto them, as unto all,
Down from love's height unto the world of men
Occasion called with many a sordid voice.
So forth they fared with sweetness in their hearts,
That took the sense of sharpness from the thorn.
Sweet is love's sun within the heavens alone,
But not less sweet when tempered by a cloud
Of daily duties! Love's elixir, drained
From out the pure and passionate cup of youth,
Is sweet; but better, providently used,
A few drops sprinkled in each common dish
Wherewith the human table is set forth,
Leavening all with heaven. Seated high
Among his people, on the lofty dais,
Dispensing judgment,--making woodlands ring
Behind a flying hart with hound and horn,--
Talking with workmen on the tawny sands,
'Mid skeletons of ships, how best the prow
May slice the big wave and shake off the foam,--
Edwin preserved a spirit calm, composed,
Still as a river at the full of tide;
And in his eye there gathered deeper blue,
And beamed a warmer summer. And when sprang
The angry blood, at sloth, or fraud, or wrong,
Something of Bertha touched him into peace
And swayed his voice. Among the people went
Queen Bertha, breathing gracious charities,
And saw but smiling faces; for the light
Aye looks on brightened colors. Like the dawn
(Beloved of all the happy, often sought
In the slow east by hollow eyes that watch)
She seemed to husked find clownish gratitude,
That could but kneel and thank. Of industry
She was the fair exemplar, us she span
Among her maids; and every day she broke
Bread to the needy stranger at her gate.
All sloth and rudeness fled at her approach;
The women blushed and courtesied as she passed,
Preserving word and smile like precious gold;
And where on pillows clustered children's heads,
A shape of light she floated through their dreams."

_History, Theory, and Practice of the Electric Telegraph_. By GEORGE B.
PRESCOTT, Superintendent of Electric Telegraph Lines. Boston: Ticknor
and Fields. 1861. 12mo.

It may be safely said that no one of the wonder-working agencies of the
nineteenth century, of an importance in any degree equal to that of the
Electric Telegraph, is so little understood in its practical details by
the world at large. Its results come before us daily, to satisfy
our morning and evening appetite for news; but how few have a clear
knowledge of even the simplest rules which govern its operation, to say
nothing of the vast and complicated system by which these results are
made so universal! The general intelligence, at present, doubtless
outruns the dull apprehension of the typical Hibernian, who, in earlier
telegraphic times, wasted the better part of a day in watching for the
passage of a veritable letter over the wires; but even now,--after
twenty years of Electric Telegraphy, during which the progress of the
magic wire has been so rapid that it has already reached an extent of
nearly sixty thousand miles in the United States alone,--even now the
ideas of men in general as to the _modus operandi_ of this great
agency are, to say the least, extremely vague. Even the chronic and
pamphlet-producing quarrel between the managers of our telegraphic
system and their Briarean antagonist, the daily-newspaper-press, fails
to convey to our general sense anything beyond the impression that
the most gigantic benefits may be so abused as to tempt us into an
occasional wish that they had never existed.

One reason of this general ignorance has been the absence of any
text-book or manual on the subject, giving a clear and thorough
exposition of its mysteries. The present is the first American work
which takes the subject in hand from the beginning and carries it
through the entire process which leads to the results we have spoken of.
Its author brings to his work the best possible qualification,--a
long familiarity with the subject in the every-day details of its
development. His Introduction informs the reader that he has been
engaged for thirteen years in the business of practical telegraphing.
He is thus sure of his ground, from the best of sources, personal
experience.

We shall not criticize the work in detail, but shall rest satisfied with
saying that the author has succeeded in his design of making the whole
subject clear to any reader who will follow his lucid and systematic
exposition. The plan of the work is simple, and the arrangement orderly
and proper. A concise statement is given of the fundamental principles
of electricity, and of the means of its artificial propagation. This
includes, of course, a description of the various batteries used in
telegraphing. Then follows a chapter upon electro-magnetism and its
application to the telegraph. This prepares the way for a statement
of the physical conditions under which the electrical current may be
conveyed. The author then describes the instruments necessary for the
transmission and recording of intelligible signs, under which general
head of "Electric Telegraph Apparatus" the various telegraphic systems
are made the subject of careful description. A chapter is given to the
history of each system,--the Morse, the Needle, the House, the Bain, the
Hughes, the Combination, and others of less note. These chapters are
very complete and very interesting, embodying, as they do, the history
of each instrument, the details of its use, and a statement of its
capabilities. The system most used in America is the Combination
system, the printing instrument of which is the result of an ingenious
combination of the most desirable qualities of the House and Hughes
systems. Of this fine instrument a full-page engraving is given, which,
with Mr. Prescott's careful explanation, renders the recording process
very clear.

The next division of the work relates to subterranean and submarine
telegraphic lines. Of this the greater portion is devoted to the
Atlantic cable, the great success and the great failure of our time.
The chapter devoted to this unfortunate enterprise gives the completest
account of its rise, progress, and decline that we have ever seen. It
seems to set at rest, so far as evidence can do it, the mooted question
whether any message ever did really pass through the submerged cable,--a
point upon which there are many unbelievers, even at the present day. We
think these unbelievers would do well to read the account before us. Mr.
Prescott informs us, that, from the first laying of the cable to the day
when it ceased to work, no less than four hundred messages were actually
transmitted: one hundred and twenty-nine from Valentia to Trinity Bay,
and two hundred and seventy-one from Trinity Bay to Valentia. The
curious reader may find copies of all these messages chronologically set
down in this volume. Mr. Prescott expresses entire confidence in the
restoration of telegraphic communication between the two hemispheres. It
may be reasonably doubted, however, if _direct submarine_ communication
will ever be resumed. Two other routes are suggested as more likely
to become the course of the international wires. One is that lately
examined by Sir Leopold M'Clintock and Captain Young, under the auspices
of the British Government. This route, taking the extreme northern coast
of Scotland as its point of departure, and touching the Faroe Islands,
Iceland, and Greenland, strikes our continent upon the coast of
Labrador, making the longest submarine section eight hundred miles,
about one-third the length of the Atlantic cable. There is not a little
doubt, however, as to the practicability of this route; and as the
British Government has already expended several hundred thousand pounds
in experimenting upon submarine cables, it is not likely that it will
venture much more upon any project not holding out a very absolute
promise of success. What seems more likely is, that our telegraphic
communication with Europe will be made eventually through Asia. Even
now the Russian Government is vigorously pushing its telegraphic lines
eastward from Moscow; and its own interest affords a strong guaranty
that telegraphic communication will soon be established between its
commercial metropolis and its military and trading posts on the Pacific
border. A project has also recently taken form to establish a line
between Quebec and the Hudson Bay Company's posts north of the Columbia
River. With the two extremes so near meeting, a submarine wire would
soon be laid over Behring's Straits, or crossing at a more southern
point and touching the Aleutian Islands in its passage.

Two of the chapters of this work will be recognized by readers of the
"Atlantic" as having first appeared in its pages,--a chapter upon the
Progress and Present Condition of the Electric Telegraph in the various
countries of the world, and a description of the Electrical Influence
of the Aurora Borealis upon the Working of the Telegraph. These, with
a curiously interesting chapter upon the Various Applications of the
Telegraph, and an amusing miscellaneous chapter showing that the
Telegraph has a literature of its own, complete the chief popular
elements of the volume. The remainder is devoted mainly to a technical
treatise on the proper method of constructing telegraphic lines,
perfecting insulation, etc. In an Appendix we have a more careful
consideration of Galvanism, and a more detailed examination of the
qualities and capacities of the various batteries.

As is becoming in any, and especially in an American, treatise upon this
great subject, Mr. Prescott devotes some space to a detailed account of
the labors of Professor Morse, which have led to his being regarded as
the father of our American system of telegraphing. In a chapter entitled
"Early Discoveries in Electro-Dynamics," he publishes for the first time
some interesting facts elicited during the trial, in the Supreme Court
of the United States, of the suit of the Morse patentees against the
House Company for alleged infringement of patent. In this chapter we
have a _resume_ of the evidence before the Court, and an abstract of the
decision of Judge Woodbury. This leads clearly to the conclusion, that,
although Professor Morse had no claims to any merit of actual invention,
yet he had the purely mechanical merit of having gone beyond all his
compeers in the application of discoveries and inventions already made,
and that he was the first to contrive and set in operation a thoroughly
effective instrument.

Mr. Prescott has produced a very readable and useful book. It has been
thoroughly and appropriately illustrated, and is a very elegant specimen
of the typographer's art.

_Great Expectations_. By CHARLES DICKENS. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson &
Brothers. 8vo.

The very title of this book indicates the confidence of conscious
genius. In a new aspirant for public favor, such a title might have been
a good device to attract attention; but the most famous novelist of the
day, watched by jealous rivals and critics, could hardly have selected
it, had he not inwardly felt the capacity to meet all the expectations
he raised. We have read it, as we have read all Mr. Dickens's previous
works, as it appeared in instalments, and can testify to the felicity
with which expectation was excited and prolonged, and to the series of
surprises which accompanied the unfolding of the plot of the story. In
no other of his romances has the author succeeded so perfectly in at
once stimulating and baffling the curiosity of his readers. He stirred
the dullest minds to guess the secret of his mystery; but, so far as
we have learned, the guesses of his most intelligent readers have been
almost as wide of the mark as those of the least apprehensive. It has
been all the more provoking to the former class, that each surprise was
the result of art, and not of trick; for a rapid review of previous
chapters has shown that the materials of a strictly logical development
of the story were freely given. Even after the first, second, third, and
even fourth of these surprises gave their pleasing electric shocks
to intelligent curiosity, the _denouement_ was still hidden, though
confidentially foretold. The plot of the romance is therefore
universally admitted to be the best that Dickens has ever invented. Its
leading events are, as we read the story consecutively, artistically
necessary, yet, at the same time, the processes are artistically
concealed. We follow the movement of a logic of passion and character,
the real premises of which we detect only when we are startled by the
conclusions.

The plot of "Great Expectations" is also noticeable as indicating,
better than any of his previous stories, the individuality of Dickens's
genius. Everybody must have discerned in the action of his mind two
diverging tendencies, which, in this novel, are harmonized. He possesses
a singularly wide, clear, and minute power of accurate observation,
both of things and of persons; but his observation, keen and true to
actualities as it independently is, is not a dominant faculty, and is
opposed or controlled by the strong tendency of his disposition to
pathetic or humorous idealization. Perhaps in "The Old Curiosity Shop"
these qualities are best seen in their struggle and divergence, and
the result is a magnificent juxtaposition of romantic tenderness,
melodramatic improbabilities, and broad farce. The humorous
characterization is joyously exaggerated into caricature,--the serious
characterization into romantic unreality, Richard Swiveller and Little
Nell refuse to combine. There is abundant evidence of genius both in the
humorous and the pathetic parts, but the artistic impression is one of
anarchy rather than unity.

In "Great Expectations," on the contrary, Dickens seems to have attained
the mastery of powers which formerly more or less mastered him. He has
fairly discovered that he cannot, like Thackeray, narrate a story as if
he were a mere looker-on, a mere "knowing" observer of what he describes
and represents; and he has therefore taken observation simply as the
basis of his plot and his characterization. As we read "Vanity Fair" and
"The Newcomes," we are impressed with the actuality of the persons and
incidents. There is an absence both of directing ideas and disturbing
idealizations. Everything drifts to its end, as in real life. In "Great
Expectations" there is shown a power of external observation finer and
deeper even than Thackeray's; and yet, owing to the presence of other
qualities, the general impression is not one of objective reality. The
author palpably uses his observations as materials for his creative
faculties to work upon; he does not record, but invents; and he produces
something which is natural only under conditions prescribed by his own
mind. He shapes, disposes, penetrates, colors, and contrives everything,
and the whole action, is a series of events which could have occurred
only in his own brain, and which it is difficult to conceive of as
actually "happening." And yet in none of his other works does he
evince a shrewder insight into real life, and a clearer perception
and knowledge of what is called "the world." The book is, indeed, an
artistic creation, and not a mere succession of humorous and pathetic
scenes, and demonstrates that Dickens is now in the prime, and not in
the decline of his great powers.

The characters of the novel also show how deeply it has been meditated;
for, though none of them may excite the personal interest which clings
to Sam Weller or little Dombey, they are better fitted to each other and
to the story in which they appear than is usual with Dickens. They all
combine to produce that unity of impression which the work leaves on
the mind. Individually they will rank among the most original of the
author's creations. Magwitch and Joe Gargery, Jaggers and Wemmick,
Pip and Herbert, Wopsle, Pumblechook, and "the Aged," Miss Havisham,
Estella, and Biddy, are personages which the most assiduous readers of
Dickens must pronounce positive additions to the characters his rich and
various genius had already created.

Pip, the hero, from whose mind the whole representation takes its form
and color, is admirably delineated throughout. Weak, dreamy, amiable,
apprehensive, aspiring, inefficient, the subject and the victim of
"Great Expectations," his individuality is, as it were, diffused through
the whole narrative. Joe is a noble character, with a heart too great
for his powers of expression to utter in words, but whose patience,
fortitude, tenderness, and beneficence shine lucidly through his
confused and mangled English. Magwitch, the "warmint" who "grew up took
up," whose memory extended only to that period of his childhood when he
was "a-thieving turnips for his living" down in Essex, but in whom a
life of crime had only intensified the feeling of gratitude for the one
kind action of which he was the object, is hardly equalled in grotesque
grandeur by anything which Dickens has previously done. The character
is not only powerful in itself, but it furnishes pregnant and original
hints to all philosophical investigators into the phenomena of crime. In
this wonderful creation Dickens follows the maxim of the great master of
characterization, and seeks "the soul of goodness in things evil."

The style of the romance is rigorously close to things. The author is so
engrossed with the objects before his mind, is so thoroughly in earnest,
that he has fewer of those humorous caprices of expression in which
formerly he was wont to wanton. Some of the old hilarity and play of
fancy is gone, but we hardly miss it in our admiration of the effects
produced by his almost stern devotion to the main idea of his work.
There are passages of description and narrative in which we are hardly
conscious of the words, in our clear apprehension of the objects and
incidents they convey. The quotable epithets and phrases are less
numerous than in "Dombey & Son" and "David Copperfield"; but the scenes
and events impressed on the imagination are perhaps greater in number
and more vivid in representation. The poetical element of the writer's
genius, his modification of the forms, hues, and sounds of Nature by
viewing them through the medium of an imagined mind, is especially
prominent throughout the descriptions with which the work abounds.
Nature is not only described, but individualized and humanized.

Altogether we take great joy in recording our conviction that "Great
Expectations" is a masterpiece. We have never sympathized in the mean
delight which some critics seem to experience in detecting the signs
which subtly indicate the decay of power in creative intellects. We
sympathize still less in the stupid and ungenerous judgments of those
who find a still meaner delight in wilfully asserting that the last book
of a popular writer is unworthy of the genius which produced his first.
In our opinion, "Great Expectations" is a work which proves that we may
expect from Dickens a series of romances far exceeding in power and
artistic skill the productions which have already given him such a
preeminence among the novelists of the age.

_Tom Brown at Oxford: A Sequel to School-Days at Rugby_. By the Author
of "School-Days at Rugby," "Scouring of the White Horse," etc. Boston:
Ticknor & Fields. 2 vols. 16mo.

Thomas Hughes, the author of these volumes, does not, on a superficial
examination, seem to deserve the wide reputation he has obtained. We
hunt his books in vain for any of those obvious peculiarities of style,
thought, and character which commonly distinguish a man from his
fellows. He does not possess striking wit, or humor, or imagination, or
power of expression. In every quality, good or bad, calculated to create
"a sensation," he is remarkably deficient. Yet everybody reads him with
interest, and experiences for him a feeling of personal affection and
esteem. An unobtrusive, yet evident nobility of character, a sound,
large, "round-about" common-sense, a warm sympathy with English and
human kind, a practical grasp of human life as it is lived by ordinary
people, and an unmistakable sincerity and earnestness of purpose animate
everything he writes. His "School-Days at Rugby" delighted men as well
as boys by the freshness, geniality, and truthfulness with which it
represented boyish experiences; and the Tom Brown who, in that book,
gained so many friends wherever the English tongue is spoken, parts with
none of his power to interest and charm in this record of his collegiate
life. Mr. Hughes has the true, wholesome English love of home, the
English delight in rude physical sports, the English hatred of hypocrisy
and cant, the English fidelity to facts, the English disbelief in all
piety and morality which are not grounded in manliness. The present work
is full of illustrations of these healthy qualities of his nature,
and they are all intimately connected with an elevated, yet eminently
sagacious spirit of Christian philanthropy. Tom Brown at Oxford, as well
as Tom Brown at Rugby, will, so far as he exerts any influence, exert
one for good. He has a plentiful lack of those impossible virtues which
disgust boys and young men with the models set up as examples for them
to emulate in books deliberately moral and religious; but he none the
less shows how a manly and Christian character can be attained by
methods which are all the more influential by departing from the common
mechanical contrivances for fashioning lusty youths into consumptive
saints, incompetent to do the work of the Lord in this world, however
they may fare in the next. Mr. Hughes can hardly be called a disciple of
"Muscular Christianity," except so far as muscle is necessary to give
full efficiency to mind; but he feels all the contempt possible to such
a tolerant nature for that spurious piety which kills the body in order
to give a sickly appearance of life to the soul.

* * * * *

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