13. 33. 67. 68.
The sentence might be understood by these four numbers, but the author perfects it. Guerre, or 'war,' is the nominative case, and is appropriately designated by the Arabic numeral 1. The third person, singular, present tense, of the indicative mood of a verb, is characterized by 15. Grand and mal being each in the nominative case, also require the figure 1. He will therefore write:
13. 1 | 33. 15 | 67. 1 | 68.1
—the numbers being separated by a vertical dash, to avoid confusion. The German, inverting the process, turns to hisdictionary, and finds Der Krieg ist ein grosses Uebel.
If the world were to be persuaded to adopt these dictionaries, and with them some uniform oral system of counting, such as might be learned in a day, who shall say in what conversation might result! Fancy an orator counting '83.1—10.16—225.2'—interrupted by enthusiastic cries of '2.30' and '11.45!' Fancy a lover breathing his tender passion in '837.25—29.1,' and extracting a reluctant '12' from his adored. Fancy a drunken Delaware Democrat—a Saulsbury—flourishing a revolver, and gurgling out '54.40' to the Sergeant-at-Arms in particular, and decency in general, as a proof of his fitness to be regarded as a mate for his Southern colleagues. Fancy Brignoli singing '1.2.3,' as he reminds us by his good singing and wooden acting of a nightingale imprisoned in a pump—
Or fancy the appearance of a page of Shakspeare or Homer thus metamorphosed.
'He lisped in numbers for, the numbers came.'
It is something to the marquis's credit that he evidently, to judge from the sixth article of his 'Century,' had discovered the telegraph, an invention not much used in Europe until the commencement of the French Revolution. It had indeed been understood in a rude form by the ancients. 'Polybius describes a method of communication which was invented by Cleoxenus, which answered both by day and night,' but that of Worcester's is thought to have been far superior to anything known before his time. The following paragraphs all indicate inventions greatly in advance of his age:
'No. IX.—An engine portable in one's pocket, which may be carried and fastened in the inside of the greatest ship, tanquam aliud agens, and at any appointed minute, though a week after, either of day or night, it shall irrecoverably sink that ship.'
A bombshell filled with gunpowder, a gunlock, and a small clock, have been suggested as forming the components of this invention. I am satisfied however, that several very dangerous detonating powders were well known to the alchemists; and the condensed pocket size of the machine described, would evidently require some such preparation.