The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

Moral links there have been--links of race, links of commerce, links of friendship, links of literature, links of glory; but this, our new link, instead of superseding and supplanting the old ones, is to give a life and an intensity which they never had before. Highly as I value the reputations of those who have conceived, and those who have contributed to carry out this bright design--and I wish that so many of them had not been unavoidably prevented from being amongst us at this moment[A]--highly as I estimate their reputation, yet I do not compliment them with the idea that they are to efface or dim the glory of that Columbus, who, when the large vessels in the harbor of Cork yesterday weighed their anchors, did so on that very day three hundred and sixty-five years ago--it would have been called in Hebrew writ a year of years--and set sail upon his glorious enterprise of discovery. They, I say, will not dim or efface his glory, but they are now giving the last finish and consummation to his work. Hitherto the inhabitants of the two worlds have associated perhaps in the chilling atmosphere of distance with each other--a sort of bowing distance; but now we can be hand to hand, grasp to grasp, pulse to pulse. The link, which is now to connect us, like the insect in the immortal couplet of our poet: While exquisitely fine, Feels at each thread and lives along the line.