, where the Imperial spider sits plotting and weaving his
meshes around the liberties of France. Then I thought, What a thing
this discovery of mine would be for political conspirators,--to
reverse the whispering-gallery of Dionysius, and, instead of the
tyrant hearing the secrets of the people, the people hearing the
secrets of the tyrant! Then I thought of Robespierre, and Marat, and
Charlotte Corday, and Marie Antoinette,--then of Delaroche's and
Mueller's pictures of the unfortunate Queen,--then of pictures in
general,--then of landscape-scenery,--till I almost fell into a doze,
when I was startled by a faint sound along the wire, as of a sigh,
like the first thrill of the AEolian harp in the evening wind. Another
message was passing. I reached my hand out to the iron thread. A
confused sadness began to oppress me. A mother's voice weeping over
her sick child pulsed along the wire. Her husband was far away. Her
little daughter lay very ill. "Come quick," said the voice. "I have
little hope; but if you were only here, I should be calmer. If she
must die, it would be such a comfort to have you here!"

I drew my hand away. I saw the whole scene too vividly. Who this
mother was I knew not; but the news of the death of a child whom I
knew and loved could not have affected me more strangely and keenly
than this semi-articulate sob which quivered along the iron airtrack,
in the silence of the evening, from one unknown--to another unknown.

I roused myself from my sadness, and thought I would descend the tree
and stroll home. The moon was up, and a pleasant walk before me, with
enough to meditate upon in the singular discovery I had made. I was
about to get down from my crotch in the tree, and was just reaching
out my dexter leg to feel if I could touch a bough below me, when a
low, wild shriek ran along the wire,--as when the wind-harp, above
referred to for illustration, is blown upon by some rude, sharp
northwester. In spite of myself, I touched the vibrating cord. The
message was brief and abrupt, like a sea-captain's command:--"Ship
Trinidad wrecked off Wildcat's Beach,--all hands lost,--no insurance!"

Do you recollect, when sitting alone sometimes in your room, at
midnight, in the month of November, how, after a lull in the blast,
the bleak wind will all at once seem to clutch at the windows, with a
demoniac howl that makes the house rock? Do you remember the
half-whistles and half-groans through the key-holes and