mistake it when he arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, as he
deserves, thanks him for something he did not invent. For this he
probably cares very little; nor do I care more. But the public does not
thank him for what he did originate,--this invaluable and simple
alphabet. Now, as I use it myself in every detail of life, and see every
hour how the public might use it, if it chose, I am really sorry for
this negligence,--both on the score of his fame, and of general
convenience.

Please to understand, then, ignorant Reader, that this curious alphabet
reduces all the complex machinery of Cadmus and the rest of the
writing-masters to characters as simple as can be made by a dot, a
space, and a line, variously combined. Thus, the marks .- designate the
letter A. The marks -... designate the letter B. All the other letters
are designated in as simple a manner.

Now I am stripping myself of one of the private comforts of my life,
(but what will one not do for mankind?) when I explain that this simple
alphabet need not be confined to electrical signals. _Long_ and _short_
make it all,--and wherever long and short can be combined, be it in
marks, sounds, sneezes, fainting-fits, canes, or children, ideas can be
conveyed by this arrangement of the long and short together. Only last
night I was talking scandal with Mrs. Wilberforce at a summer party at
the Hammersmiths. To my amazement, my wife, who scarcely can play "The
Fisher's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wilberforce if she
could give her the idea of an air in "The Butcher of Turin." Mrs.
Wilberforce had never heard that opera,--indeed, had never heard of it.
My angel-wife was surprised,--stood thrumming at the piano,--wondered
she could not catch this very odd bit of discordant accord at all,--but
checked herself in her effort, as soon as I observed that her long notes
and short notes, in their tum-tee, tee,--tee-tee, tee-tum tum, meant,
"He's her brother." The conversation on her side turned from "The
Butcher of Turin," and I had just time on the hint thus given me by Mrs.
I. to pass a grateful eulogium on the distinguished statesman whom Mrs.
Wilberforce, with all a sister's care, had rocked in his
baby-cradle,--whom, but for my wife's long and short notes, I should
have clumsily abused among the other statesmen of the day.

You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that it is not the
business simply of "operators" in telegraphic dens to know thi