CYRUS THE GREAT 65 
Typical of the extravagant praise showered on Field was 
an impressive oration by a famous preacher, the Reverend 
Henry Ward Beecher, on the evening of August g at Fishkill- 
on-the-Hudson. This master of eloquence reviewed briefly 
the coming of the steamboat, the railroad, and the telegraph 
—all within the memory of men of the day. He continued in 
his vivid style: 
“T thought all the way in riding down here to-night how 
strange it will seem to have that silent cord lying in the sea, 
perfectly noiseless, perfectly undisturbed by war or by storm, 
by the paddles of steamers, by the thunders of navies above it, 
far beyond all anchors’ reach, beyond all plumbing inter- 
ference. There will be earthquakes that will shake the other 
world, and the tidings of them will come under the silent 
sea, and we shall know them upon the hither side, but the 
cord will be undisturbed, though it bears earthquakes to us. 
[Earthquakes have broken the cables on several occasions.] 
Markets will go up and fortunes will be made down in the 
depths of the sea. The silent highway will carry it without 
noise to us. Fortunes will go down and bankruptcies spread 
dismay, and the silent road will bear this message without a 
jar and without disturbance. Without voice or speech it will 
communicate thunders and earthquakes and tidings of war 
and revolutions, and all those things that fill the air with 
clamor. ‘They will come quick as thought from the scene of 
their first fever and excitement, flash quick as thought and 
silent on their passage, and then break out on this side with 
fresh tremor and anxiety. To me the functions of that wire 
seem, in some sense, sublime. Itself impassive, quiet, still, 
moving either hemisphere at its extremities by the tidings that 
are to issue out from it: =)... 
“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 to- 
