"We are called, and shall be increasingly so, to mark the advantages which are to be derived from the connection of these continents by this telegraphic wire. To my mind the prominent advantage is this: it is bringing mankind close together, it is bringing nations nearer together. And I augur the best results to humanity from this. The more intercourse nations have with each other, other things being equal, the greater the tendency to establish between them peace and good-will, and just as they are brought together will they contribute to advance the day of universal brotherhood. " ...That which is spoken at 12 o'clock in London will be known by us at 8 o'clock in the morning here, according to our time.... It is no longer in her own bosom that France can keep her secrets. It is no longer in her own race that Russia can keep her thoughts and her plans. It is no longer in the glorious old British Islands that their commercial intelligence can be confined. It is wafted round and round the globe. In less than an hour, whenever this system shall be completed, the world will be enlightened quicker than by the sun; quicker than by the meteor's flash. What is known in one place will be known in all places; the globe will have but one ear, and that ear will be everywhere.... "I scarcely dare any longer think what shall be. I remember the derision with which Whitney's plan for a railroad to the Mississippi was hailed. I remember there was scarce a paper in the country that did not feel called upon to talk of the advisability of sending him to the lunatic asylum. I remember the time when the project of a steamer crossing the Atlantic was scientifically declared to be impracticable.... I remember when the first steamer crossed the Atlantic, and I have been told, though the story may be too good to be true, that the first steamer that made the passage to New York carried with her the newspaper containing the news of the impossibility of making the voyage, by Dr. Lardner....