After all, why should it be thought so improbable, in this age of strange phenomena, that the ideas transmitted through the electro-magnetic wire may be communicated to the brain,—especially when there exist certain abnormal or semi-abnormal conditions of that brain and its nerves? Is it not reasonable to suppose that all magnetisms are one in essence? The singular experiences above related seem to hint at the truth of such a view. If it be true that certain delicately-organized persons have the power of telling the character of others, who are entire strangers to them, simply by holding in their hands letters written by those strangers, is it not full as much within the scope of belief that there are those who, under certain physical conditions, may detect the purport of an electro-magnetic message,—that message being sent by vibrations of the wire through the nerves to the brain? If all magnetisms are one in essence,—as I am inclined to believe,—and if the nerves, the brain, and the mind are so swayed by what we term animal magnetism, why not allow for the strong probability of their being also, under certain conditions, equally impressible by electro-magnetism? I put these questions to scientific men; and I do not see why they should be answered by silence or ridicule, merely because the whole subject is veiled in mystery.
It may be asked,—How can an electro-magnetic message be communicated to the mind, without a knowledge of the alphabet used by the telegraphers? This question may seem a poser to some minds. But I don't see that it raises any grave difficulty. I answer the question by asking another:—How can persons in the somnambulic state read with the tops of their heads?
Besides, I once had the telegraph alphabet explained to me by one of the wire-operators,—though I have forgotten it,—and it is possible, that, in my semi-mesmeric condition, the recollection revived, so that I knew that such and such pulsations of the wire stood for such and such letters.
But is there not a certain spiritual significance, also, in these singular experiences here related?
We may safely lay down this doctrine,—a very old and much-thumbed doctrine, but none the less true for all its dog-ears:—No man lives for himself alone. He is related not only to the silent stars and the singing-birds and the sunny landscape, but to every other human soul. You say, This should not be stated so sermonically, but symbolically. That is just what I have been doing in my narrative of the wires.
It gives one a great idea of human communion,—this power of sending these spark-messages thousands of miles in a second. Far more poetical, too,—is it not?—as well as more practical, than tying billets under the wings of carrier-pigeons. It is removing so much time and space out of the way,—those absorbents of spirits,—and bringing mind into close contact with mind. But when one can read these messages without the aid of machinery, by merely touching the wires, how much greater does the symbol become!
All mankind are one. As some philosophers express it,—one great mind includes us all. But then, as it would never do for all minds to be literally one, any more than it would for all magnetisms to be identical in their modes of manifestation, or for all the rivers, creeks, and canals to flow together, so we have our natural barriers and channels, our propriums, as the Swedish seer has it,—and so we live and let live. We feel with others and think with others, but with strict reservations. That evening among the wires, for instance, brought me into wonderful intimate contact with a few of the joys and sorrows of some of my fellow-beings; but an excess of such experiences would interfere with our freedom and our happiness. It is our self-hood, properly balanced, which constitutes our dignity, our humanity. A certain degree, and a very considerable degree of insulation is necessary, that individual life and mental equanimity may go on.
But there may be a degree of insulation which is unbecoming a member of the human family. It may become brutish,—or it may amount to the ridiculous. In Paris, there was an old lady, of uncertain age, who lived in the apartment beneath mine. I think I never saw her but twice. She manifested her existence sometimes by complaining of the romping of the children overhead, who called her the "bonne femme." Why they gave her the name I don't know; for she seemed to have no human ties in the world, and wasted her affections on a private menagerie of parrots, canaries, and poodle-dogs. A few shocks of the electric telegraph might have raised her out of her desert island, and given her some glimpses of the great continents of human love and sympathy.
A man who lives for himself alone sits on a sort of insulated glass stool, with a noli-me-tangere look at his fellow-men, and a shivering dread of some electric shock from contact with them. He is a non-conductor in relation to the great magnetic currents which run pulsing along the invisible wires that connect one heart with another. Preachers, philanthropists, and moralists are in the habit of saying of such a person,—"How cold! how selfish! how unchristian!" I sometimes fancy a citizen of the planet Venus, that social star of evening and morning, might say,—"How absurd!" What a figure he cuts there, sitting in solitary state upon his glass tripod,—in the middle of a crowd of excited fellow-beings, hurried to and fro by their passions and sympathies,—like an awkward country-bumpkin caught in the midst of a gay crowd of polkers and waltzers at a ball,—or an oyster bedded on a rock, with silver fishes playing rapid games of hide and seek, love and hate, in the clear briny depths above and beneath! If the angels ever look out of their sphere of intense spiritual realities to indulge in a laugh, methinks such a lonely tripod-sitter, cased over with his invulnerable, non-conducting cloak and hood,—shrinking, dodging, or bracing himself up on the defensive, as the crowd fans him with its rush or jostles up against him,—like the man who fancied himself a teapot, and was forever warning people not to come too near him,—might furnish a subject for a planetary joke not unworthy of translation into the language of our dim earth.
One need not be a lonely bachelor, nor a lonely spinster, in order to live alone. The loneliest are those who mingle with men bodily and yet have no contact with them spiritually. There is no desert solitude equal to that of a crowded city where you have no sympathies. I might here quote Paris again, in illustration,—or, indeed, any foreign city. A friend of mine had an atelier once in the top of a house in the Rue St. Honoré. He knew not a soul in the house nor in the neighborhood. There was a German tailor below, who once made him a pair of pantaloons,—so they were connected sartorically and pecuniarily, and, when they met, recognized one another: and there was the concierge below, who knew when he came in and went out,—that was all. All day long the deafened roar of carts and carriages, and the muffled cry of the marchands des légumes, were faintly heard from below. And in an adjoining room a female voice (my friend could never tell whether child's or woman's, for he never saw any one) overflowed in tones of endearment on some unresponding creature,—he could never guess whether it was a baby, or a bird, or a cat, or a dog, or a lizard, (the French have such pets sometimes,) or an enchanted prince, like that poor half-marble fellow in the "Arabian Nights." In that garret the painter experienced for six months the perfection of Parisian solitude. Now I dare say he or I might have found social sympathies, by hunting them up; but he didn't, and I dare say he was to blame, as I should be in the same situation,—and I am willing to place myself in the same category with the menagerie-loving old lady, above referred to, omitting the feathered and canine pets.