Just as the disc started on that fatal dispatch, 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 telegraphic 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.
* * * * *
LITERARY NOTICES.
Études sur Pascal. Par M. VICTOR COUSIN. Cinqième Edition, revue et augmentée. Paris: 1857. pp. 566. 8vo.
We render hearty thanks to M. Cousin for this new edition of a favorite work. No library which contains Pascal's "Provinciales" and "Pensées" should be without it.
"Of all the monuments of the French language," says M. Cousin, in the Avant-propos to this new edition, "none is more celebrated than the work 'Les Pensées,' and French literature possesses no artist more consummate than Pascal. Do not expect to find in this young geometrician, so soon consumed by disease and passion, the breadth, surface, and infinite variety of Bossuet, who, supported by vast and uninterrupted study, rose and rose until he gained the loftiest reaches of intellect and art, and commanded at pleasure every tone and every style. Pascal did not fulfil all his destiny. Besides the mathematics and natural philosophy he knew scarcely more than a little theology, and he barely passed through good society. It is true, Pascal passed away from earth quickly; but during his short life he discerned glimpses of the beau ideal, he attached himself to it with all his heart and soul and strength, and he never allowed anything to leave his hands unless it bore its lively impress. So great was his passion for perfection, that unchallenged tradition tells us he wrote the seventeenth 'Provinciale' thirteen times over. 'Les Pensées' are merely fragments of the great work on which he consumed the last years of his life; but these fragments sometimes present so finished a beauty, that we do not know which most to admire, the grandeur and vigor of the sentiments and ideas, or the delicacy and depth of the art."
This praise is unexaggerated. What a career was run by this genius! Discovering the science of geometry at twelve years of age,—next inventing the arithmetical machine,—discovering atmospheric pressure, while every philosopher was prating about "Nature's horror of a vacuum,"—inventing the wheelbarrow, to divert his mind from the pains of the toothache, and succeeding,—inventing the theory of probabilities,—establishing the first omnibuses that ever relieved the public,—then writing the "Provinciales,"—dying at thirty-three, leaving behind him two small volumes (you may carry them in your pocket) which are the unchallengeable title-deeds of his immortal fame, the favorite works of Gibbon, Voltaire, Macaulay, and Cousin! Where else can so crowded and so short a career be found?
It is scarcely possible to repress a smile in reading this work and discovering the patient care with which M. Cousin avoids speaking of the "Provinciales." And it is strange to say (no contemptible proof of the influence exercised by the Church of Rome, even when checked as it is in France) that no decent edition of the "Provinciales" can be found in the French language. While we possess M. Cousin's "Études sur Pascal," and M. Havet's edition of "Les Pensées," the only editions of "Les Provinciales" of recent date are the miserable publications of Charpentier and the Didots. Editions of Voltaire and Rousseau are numerous, elaborate, and elegant; for atheism is pardoned much more easily than abhorrence of the Jesuits.
The volume named at the head of this article contains a great many valuable documents relating to Pascal and his family: all of Pascal's correspondence known to exist, including his celebrated letter on the death of Étienne Pascal, his father, which is usually printed in "Les Pensées," being cut up into short sentences to fit it for that work, a large part of it being omitted; his singular essay on Love; curious details concerning the De Roanner family; an essay on the true text of the "Pensées"; a curious fac-simile of a page of that work; and a discussion (perhaps M. Cousin would say a refutation) of Pascal's philosophy. But we must protest against the easy manner in which M. Cousin wears his honors. When a book has reached its fifth edition and is evidently destined to a good many more during the author's lifetime, he lies under an obligation to place the new information he may have collected, and the additional thoughts which may have occurred to him, during the intervals between the different editions, in a form more convenient to the render than new prefaces and new notes. To master the information contained in this work is no recreation, but a severe task, and one not to be accomplished except upon repeated perusals of the book. This is the more inexcusable because M. Cousin is now free from all official and professional cares; and it would involve the less labor to him, as he never writes, but dictates all his compositions.