the stop, s, and retained by the influence of the magnet until released by the interruption of the current at the key, K. The magnetism now instantly disappears, the armature is released, and being raised by the spring, T, strikes against the upper stop, s. Hence the movements of the armature to and fro between the stops are a faithful reproduction of the movements given to the key, K, by the finger of the operator. So nearly simultaneous are these two movements that the ear is unable to separate them, even when both instruments are placed upon the same table and electrically united through a thousand miles of intervening wire. This simple apparatus comprises all that is essential in the commercial operation of the electric telegraph. Other attachments are added for convenience, especially the relay and combined circuit for increasing the volume of sound from the receiving instrument; but this feature is in no wise indispensable, and is often omitted. The elementary mechanism illustrated on the previous page, and the alphabetical code of Vail, based on the immutable principle of the division of time and space, are essentials; all else is in a greater or less degree superfluous. If we examine more closely this elementary apparatus, we find it almost identical with that employed by Henry in 1832. The battery, the circuit of wires, the electro-magnet, the lever, and the device which produces sounds when struck by the lever under the attractive impulse of the electro-magnet, differ in no material respect from the devices of Henry. His crude transmitting apparatus, a wire dipped in mercury, is replaced by Vail's spring finger-key. The adjustable stops between which the armature lever vibrates, originally devised by Page, were also incorporated into the telegraph by Vail. It is self-evident, therefore, that not a single feature of the original invention of Morse, as formulated in his caveat and repeated in his original patent, is to be found among the essential constituents of the modern apparatus. Prior to 1837, it embodied the work of Morse and of Henry alone. From 1837 to 1844, it was a combination of the inventions of Morse, Henry, and Vail; but, as we have seen, the elements contributed by Morse have gradually fallen into desuetude, so that the essential telegraph of to-day, and the universal telegraph of the future, comprises solely the work of h t. ? Joseph Henry and Alfred Vail. The grandeur of Vail's conception of an alphabetical code, based on the elements of time and space, has never met with the appreciation which it deserves. Its utility is not confined to electric telegraphy. It is used to signal, by intermittent flashes of light, between far distant signal stations of the Coast Survey, and between the different vessels of a fleet; it is sounded upon whistles and bells to convey intelligence to and from steamers cautiously feeling their way through the obscurity of fogs; and in fact nearly every day brings to notice some new field of usefulness for this universal symbolic language. It appeals to almost every one of our senses, for it may be interpreted with almost equal facility by the sight, the touch, the taste, and the hearing. Indeed, with a charged electrical conductor and a knowledge of Vail's alphabetical code, even the transmitting and receiving instruments of the electric telegraph may be dispensed with in emergencies. In the minds of those who have followed the history of the invention of the telegraph, as related in the foregoing pages, the question will naturally arise why Vail did not during his lifetime publicly claim the credit for the share in the invention which was justly his. In reply to this, it may be said of him, that while we now recognize that he was an inventor of exceptional ability, yet, at the time of making his improvements, it did not occur to him that they were anything more than modifications of the invention of Morse; and he further appears to have considered that under his contract with Morse he was debarred from taking patents in his own name, even for the independent creations of his own brain- an erroneous impression, which at least one of his associates apparently took no pains to dispel. Another and perhaps controlling reason for his course is to be found in the fact, that, no sooner had the commercial value of the telegraph been demonstrated by its extension to the principal cities of the United States than rival and infringing enterprises sprung up on every hand. The ablest legal talent of the country, sustained by ample capital, was employed for years in a series of gigantic legal contests, with the avowed object of overthrowing the patents of Morse, and thus leaving the invention open to the world. The position of Vail, not only as a confidential associate of Morse, but as co-proprietor in the patents, forbade him, both as a matter of policy and of justice, to set up a claim which might have been used with telling effect against the validity of Morse's patent. But, while Vail remained silent, so far as the public was concerned, because, in his own words, he "wished to preserve the peaceful unity of the invention," yet, his correspondence with his associates contains ample evidence that he never hesitated to assert to them his rightful claims, so far as he himself understood and appreciated them. When personal friends, familiar with the work which he had done, urged him to insist upon a recognition of his rights, he replied, "I am confident that Professor Morse will do me justice." But before the expiration of the patents, the death of Mr. Vail occurred, and from this time forward his claims received but scant consideration, although the reasons which had previously rendered this course apparently desirable and necessary no longer existed. Ten years after Vail had passed from earth, a magnificent reception and banquet was tendered to Professor Morse by the principal citizens of New York, at which Chief-Justice Chase presided. Professor Morse, referring to his invention, said: In 1835, according to the concurrent testimony of many witnesses, it lisped its first accents, and automatically recorded them, a few blocks only distant from the spot from which I now address you. It was a feeble child indeed, ungainly in its dress, stammering in its speech; but it had then all the distinctive features and characteristics of its present manhood. It found a friend, an efficient friend, in Mr. Alfred Vail of New Jersey, who with his father and brother furnished the means to give the child a decent dress preparatory to its visit to the seat of Government. this was all that Professor Morse, in the evenOne cannot but feel a certain surprise that ing of his days and in the zenith of his fame, could find to say in recognition of the earnest, self-sacrificing, and life-long labors of his deceased associate. credit which is justly due Morse for his great work, the conception and the reduction to practice of the recording telegraph. His indebtedness to those who had gone before him, whose results he embodied in his own work, and to the assistants who shared his confidence and his labors, diminishes not in the least his own merit as an inventor, although we believe even greater credit is due him for the unwearied industry, patience, and persistence with which he pressed forward, in the would have recoiled in dismay, until the goal face of discouragements from which most men would have recoiled in dismay, until the goal of success was reached. But in the words of the distinguished associate and friend of both, The writer has no wish to detract from the the Hon. Amos Kendall: If justice be done, the name of Alfred Vail will forever stand associated with that of Samuel F. B. Morse in the history and introduction into public use of the electro-magnetic telegraph. Franklin Leonard Pope. THE STRUGGLE. (It is a Soul that struggles so.) "Body, I see on yonder height Dim reflex of a solemn light; A flame that shineth from the place Where Beauty walks with naked face: It is a flame you cannot see,— Lie down, you clod, and set me free. "Body, I pray you, let me go!" (It is a Soul that striveth so.) 'Body, I hear dim sounds afar Dripping from some diviner star; Dim sounds of joyous harmony: Must drink that song or break my heart,— "Comrade, your frame is worn and frail, Your vital powers begin to fail; I long for life, but you for rest, Thus strove a Being: Beauty-fain, Danske Dandridge. THE WOODS ARE HUSHED. Landscape frames T was near the middle of the aft-/ ernoon of an autumnal day, on the wide, elevated, rich, grassy plateau of central Kentucky. The Eternal Power seemed to have quitted the universe and left all nature folded in the calm of the EterInal Peace Around the pale-blue dome of the heavens a few pearl-colored clouds hung motionless, as though the wind had been withdrawn to other skies. Not a crimson leaf floated downwards through the soft, silvery light that filled the atmosphere and created the sense of lonely unimaginable spaces. This light overhung the far-rolling landscape of field and meadow and wood, crowning with faint radiance the remoter low-swelling hilltops and deepening into dreamy half-shadows on their eastern slopes. Nearer, it fell in a white flake on an unstirred sheet of water which lay along the edge of a mass of somberhued woodland, and nearer still it touched to spring-like brilliancy a level, green meadow on the hither edge of the water, where a group of Durham cattle stood with reversed flanks near the gleaming trunks of some leafless sycamores. Still nearer, it caught the top of the brown foliage of a little bent oak-tree and burnt it into a silvery flame. It lit on the back and the wings of a crow flying heavily in the path of its rays, and made his blackness as white as the breast of a swan. In the immediate foreground, it sparkled in minute gleams along the stalks of the coarse, dead weeds that fell away from the legs and the flanks of a white horse, and slanted across the face of the rider and through the ends of his gray hair, which, straggled from beneath his soft black hat. The horse, old and patient and gentle, stood VOL. XXXV.-129. TENNYSON. with low-stretched neck and closed eyes half- To the man it was a closing scene. From The civil war had only the year before reached its ever-memorable close. From where he sat there was not a home in sight, as there was not one beyond the reach of his vision, but had felt its influence. Some of his old neighbors had come home from its camps and prisons, aged or altered as though by half a lifetime of years. The bones of some lay whitening on its battle-fields. Families reassembled around their hearthstones spoke in low tones unceasingly of defeat and victory, heroism and death. Suspicion and distrust and estrangement prevailed. Former friends met each other on the turnpikes without speaking; brothers avoided each other in the streets of the neighboring town. The rich had grown poor; the poor had become rich. Many of the latter were preparing to move West. The negroes were drifting blindly hither and thither, deserting the country and flocking to the towns. Even the once united rural church was jarred by the unstrung and discordant spirit of the times. At affecting passages in the sermons men grew pale and set their teeth fiercely; women suddenly lowered their black veils and.rocked to and fro in their pews; for it is always at the bar of Conscience and before the very altar of God that the human heart is most wrung by a sense of its losses and the memory of its wrongs. The war had divided the people of Kentucky as the false mother would have severed the child. It had not left the old man unscathed. His younger brother had fallen early in the conflict, borne to the end of his brief warfare by his impetuous valor; his aged mother had sunk under the tidings of the death of her latestborn; his sister was estranged from him by political differences with her husband; his old family servants, men and women, had left him, and grass and weeds had already grown over the doorsteps of the shut, noiseless cabins. Nay, the whole vast social system of the old régime had fallen, and he was henceforth but a useless fragment of the ruins. All at once his eye turned from the cracked and smoky mirror of the times and dwelt fondly upon the scenes of the past. The silent fields around him seemed again alive with the negroes, singing as they followed the plows down the corn-rows or swung the cradles through the bearded wheat. Again, in a frenzy of merriment, the strains of the old fiddles issued from crevices of cabindoors to the rhythmic beat of hands and feet that shook the rafters and the roof. Now he was sitting on his porch, and one little negro was blacking his shoes, another leading his saddle-horse to the stiles, a third bringing his hat, and a fourth handing him a glass of icecold sangaree; or now he lay under the locust-trees in his yard, falling asleep in the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon, while one waved over him a bough of pungent walnut leaves, until he lost consciousness and by-and-by awoke to find that they both had fallen asleep side by side on the grass and the abandoned fly-brush lay full across his face. From where he sat also were seen slopes on which picnics were danced under the broad shade of maples and elms in June by those whom death and war had scattered like the transitory leaves that once had sheltered them. In this direction lay the district school-house where on Friday evenings there were wont to be speeches and debates; in that, lay the blacksmith's shop where of old he and his neighbors had met on horseback of Saturday afternoons to hear the news, get the mails, discuss elections, and pitch quoits. In the valley beyond stood the church at which all had assembled on calm Sunday mornings like the members of one united family. Along with these scenes went many a chastened reminiscence of bridal and funeral and simpler events that had made up the annals of his country life. The reader will have a clearer insight into the character and past career of Colonel Romulus Fields by remembering that he represented the flower of that social order which had bloomed in rank perfection over the bluegrass plains of Kentucky during the final decades of the old régime. Perhaps of all agriculturists in the United States the inhabitants of that region had spent the most nearly idyllic life, on account of the beauty of the climate, the richness of the land, the spacious comfort of their homes, the efficiency of their negroes, and the characteristic contentedness of their dispositions. In reality they were not farmers, but rural, idle gentlemen of easy fortunes whose slaves did their farming for them. Thus nature and history combined to make them a peculiar class, a cross between the aristocratic and the bucolic, being as simple as shepherds and as proud as kings, and not seldom exhibiting among both men and women types of character which were as remarkable for pure, tender, noble states of feeling as they were commonplace in powers and cultivation of mind. It was upon this luxurious social flower that the war naturally fell as a killing frost, and upon no single specimen with more blighting power than upon Colonel Fields. For destiny-to change the figure- had absolutely quarried and chiseled him, to serve as an ornament in the barbaric temple of human bondage. There were ornaments in that temple, and he was one. A slaveholder with South ern sympathies, a man educated not beyond the ideas of his generation, convinced that slavery was an evil, yet seeing no present way of removing it, he had of all things been a model master. As such he had gone on record in Kentucky, and no doubt in a Higher Court; and as such his efforts had been put forth to secure the passage of many of those milder laws for which his State was distinguished. Often, in those dark days, his face, anxious and sad, was to be seen amidst the throng that surrounded the blocks on which slaves were sold at auction; and more than one poor wretch he had bought to save him from separation from his family or from being sold into the plantations,- afterwards riding far and near to find him a home on one of the neighboring farms. Now all was changed. He had but to place the whole picture of the present beside the whole picture of the past to realize what the contrast meant for him. father near the beginning of the century, and through its doors had passed a long train of forms, from the veterans of the Revolution to the soldiers of the civil war. Old coats hung up in closets; old dresses folded away in drawers; saddle-bags and buckskin-leggins; hunting-jackets, powder-horns, and militiamen hats; looms and knitting-needles; snuffboxes and reticules,- what a treasure-house of the past it was! And now the only thing that had the springs of life within its bosom was the great, sweet-voiced clock, whose faithful face had kept unchanged amidst all the swift pageantry of changes. "Peter," he said very simply, "I am going to sell the place and move to town. I can't live here any longer." With these words he passed through the yard-gate, walked slowly up the broad pavement, and entered the house. MUSIC NO MORE. At length he gathered the bridle reins from the neck of his old horse and turned his head homeward. As he rode slowly on, every spot gave up its memories. He dismounted when he came to the cattle and walked among them, stroking their soft flanks and feeling in the palm of his hand the rasp of their tongues; on his sideboard at home was many a silver cup which told of premiums at the great fairs. It was in this very pond that as a boy he had learned to swim on a cherry rail. When he entered the woods, the sight of the walnut-trees He dismounted at the stiles and handed the and the hickory-nut trees, loaded on the top-reins to a gray-haired negro, who had hobbled most branches, gave him a sudden pang. Be- up to receive them with a smile and a gesture yond the woods he came upon the garden, of the deepest respect. which he had kept as his mother had left it,— an old-fashioned garden with an arbor in the center, covered with Isabella grape-vines on one side and Catawba on the other; with walks branching thence in four directions, and along them beds of jump-up-Johnnies, sweetwilliams, daffodils, sweet-peas, larkspur, and thyme, flags and the sensitive plant, celestial and maiden's-blush roses. He stopped and looked over the fence at the very spot where he had found his mother on the day when the news of the battle came. She had been kneeling, trowel in hand, driving away vigorously at the loamy earth, and, as she saw him coming, had risen and turned towards him her face with the ancient pink bloom on her clear cheeks and the light of a pure, strong soul in her gentle eyes. Overcome by his emotions, he had blindly faltered out the words, "Mother, John was among the killed!" For a moment she had looked at him as though stunned by a blow. Then a violent flush had overspread her features, and then an ashen pallor; after which, with a sudden proud dilating of her form as though with joy, she had sunk down like the tenderest of her lily-stalks, cut from its root. Beyond the garden he came to the empty cabin and the great woodpile. At this hour it used to be a scene of hilarious activity, the little negroes sitting perched in chattering groups on the topmost logs or playing leapfrog in the dust, while some picked up baskets of chips or dragged a back-log into the cabins. At last he drew near the wooden stiles and saw the large house of which he was the solitary occupant. What darkened rooms and noiseless halls! What beds, all ready, that nobody now came to sleep in, and cushioned old chairs that nobody rocked! The house and the contents of its attic, presses, and drawers could have told much of the history of Kentucky from almost its beginning; for its foundations had been laid by his On the disappearing form of the colonel was fixed an ancient pair of eyes that looked out at him from behind a still more ancient pair of silver-rimmed spectacles with an expression of indescribable solicitude and love. These eyes were set in the head of an old gentleman - for such he was named Peter Cotton, who was the only one of the colonel's former slaves that had remained inseparable from his person and his altered fortunes. In early manhood Peter had been a wood-chopper; but he had one day had his leg broken by the limb of a falling tree, and afterwards, out of consideration for his limp, had been made supervisor of the woodpile, gardener, and a sort of nondescript servitor of his master's luxurious needs. Nay, in larger and deeper characters must his history be writ, he having been, in days gone by, one of those ministers of the gospel whom conscientious Kentucky masters often urged to the exercise of spiritual functions in behalf of their benighted people. In course of preparation for this august work, Peter had learned to read and had come to possess a well-chosen library of three several volumes,- Webster's Spelling-Book, Pilgrim's Progress, and the Bible. But even these unusual acquisitions he deemed not enough; for being touched with a spark of poetic fire from heaven, and enthused by the African's fondness for all that is conspicuous in dress, he had conceived for himself the creation of a unique garment which should symbolize in perfection the claims and consolations of his |