A Little More on the Same Subject

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A LITTLE MORE ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

It is likely that no event that has even occurred in history and progress of the earth, at any age, has had so much written and said about it, good, bad, and indifferent, as, considering its brief age, the Atlantic Telegraph¹ has had uttered about it. It seems to have called out all the editors, authors, contributors reporters, motto-writers, preachers, dinner-speakers, (quite a class, these last,) and, in general, all who have the ability to take this pen in hand, or the luck to get anybody to listen to them.

Of course, amid so many volunteers, some of them altogether too enthusiastic, some of them novices, a good deal has been and will be put forth that does not stand a very rigid critical test. We confess to laughing heartily at some of the overstrained flights that certain of our compatriots (very good fellows, no doubt, in their way,) attempt to fly "upon this occasion." Still, there is another side to the thing; perhaps we must not be so very critical. the success of this astonishing work, may well put people off their usual balance, and exhilarate them to say and do what, under the ordinary routine of life, would be food for mirth and laughter—but here may easily be excused.

We especially allude to some of the editorial flights of our brethren on the main land. The western writers, in particular, appear to have been altogether unable to "hold themselves." The classics, English literature, and the finest epithets and tropes of modern transcendentalism, are all lugged in, and then more piled upon that—quotations, whether applicable or not, it makes little difference. We repeat, however, that on the transpiring of an event so fit for a universal national "spree," we, for our part, are not going to be particular and sensible—lest we stand out as an exception, and "the only sober man in the parts."

Then it is to be said that numerous among the effusions are those full of thought, fancy and wit. Some of them are pictorial, and cannot be represented in print. Others are among the mottos; such, for instance, as those put, on Wednesday, in front of our City Hall—trumpet-words, we know—but the blast might be still louder, by a good deal, and still not outvie the facts, and what they warrant.

Much comment is made on the messages interchanged between the Queen and the President. We think them very well worded—as indeed they could hardly be otherwise. The main thing, it seems to us, consisted in the bare fact of passing such messages—in each of the high potentates congratulating the other, and expressing their compliments; and that being done the whole thing was done.

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