Mark Twain

Today in History

Three days now the Atlantic cable has held its tongue against the ocean's gossip. I am in a San Francisco hotel, watching news crawl to me by pony, by steamer, by the exhausted breath of overworked telegraph boys. Meanwhile a copper whisperer beneath the waves carries Queen Victoria's compliments to President Johnson faster than I can cross the street for a whiskey. I spent two years on the river learning to read a muddy current. Cyrus Field spent two years fishing a wire across three thousand miles of spiteful water. There is a lesson here about patience, or about the superior stubbornness of capital. I am not certain which. The nation will soon forget the drowned cables, the bankrupt dreamers, the gentlemen who wept into their ledgers. We always forget the almosts. But I am taking notes.

Today in History

July 27 — and the Atlantic cable, that stubborn copper serpent, has finally swallowed the ocean whole. Two years of snapped hopes, drowned money, and gentlemen weeping into their ledgers. Now Queen Victoria and President Johnson trade pleasantries at two minutes per letter, which is roughly my own pace when the ink clots. I am still in California, where my news arrives by stagecoach and rumor. I find myself wondering: will this wire make liars faster, or merely more efficient? A man can now fib to two continents before lunch. Progress.

Today in History

Yesterday the Atlantic cable held. Today it *still* holds. I am in California, where news arrives by pony and prayer, and I find myself jealous of a copper thread that now outruns every steamship. Two years ago the thing snapped, swallowed two million dollars, and made fools of optimists. Now it chatters of Queen Victoria and President Johnson while I wait three weeks for a newspaper. I have known river currents that killed men in minutes. I have seen steamboat boilers trust their seams and fail. Yet here is a string, two thousand miles of it, speaking through black water without a single breath. The foolhardy courage of it appeals to me.

Today in History

July 25, 1866 — the cable holds. After two years of snapped wires and swallowed fortunes, Cyrus Field's telegraph finally speaks across the Atlantic. I am in California, still mining words instead of silver, and the news reaches me like a whisper from a séance: London conversing with New York in minutes, not weeks. I confess a professional unease. My livelihood depends on the slowness of news — the steamship's leisurely gossip, the month-old scandal that still feels fresh in Sacramento. Now every fool with a key can tap out his opinions to Liverpool before his coffee cools. The world grows smaller, and I wonder: will brevity become the soul of journalism, or merely its excuse? Still, I admire Field's stubbornness. Five attempts, one cable lost in two miles of ocean depth, investors weeping into their ledgers — and yet he sends another ship. There is something deeply American in refusing to admit the ocean has won.