Marconi

“ Branly of Paris who got up the coherer several years before Marconi began his experiments in wireless.
The door of the Installation d’Alimentation Electrique was open and I glanced in at the dynamos, motors and storage batteries and from the size of its equipment I judged the station to be about 100 horsepower. ”

“ Marconi when he received the first signals across the Atlantic, but before I do so I want to say a few words concerning the great inventor and his wireless telegraph.
Quite a number of people seem to be imbued with the idea that no one ever thought of sending messages by wireless before Mr. Marconi—in fact that he just put together a few old electrical instruments and forthwith sent and received messages over space without any connecting wires. ”

“ Adolph Slaby, of the Charlottenburg University, was allowed to be present while Marconi was sending and receiving messages.
The learned doctor deliberately swiped Marconi’s ideas and on returning to the land of kultur he bent his energies toward outdoing and undoing the young inventor who showed him how to telegraph without wires. Of course, Dr. Slaby invented a system of wireless telegraphy and this was quickly used on the ships of what was formerly the German Navy. ”

“ Signor Marconi, in an interview in Washington, praised American democracy.
"Over here," he said, "you respect a man for what he is himself—not for what his family is—and thus you remind me of the gardener in Bologna who helped me with my first wireless apparatus.
"As my mother's gardener and I were working on my apparatus together a young count joined us one day, and while he watched us work the count boasted of his lineage.
"The gardener, after listening a long while, smiled and said:
"'If you come from an ancient family, it's so much the worse for you sir ”

“ Haarland growled: “Good God, no. You can get out. Sit down, Ross.”
Ross sat down. Marconi, carefully looking neither to right or left, went out and closed the door. Haarland stretched, scratched, and yawned. He said: “Ross, Marconi 31tells me you’re quite a fellow. Sincere, competent, a good man to give a tough job to. Namely, his.”
“Junior-Fourth Trader?” Ross asked, bewildered.
“A little more dramatic than that—but we’ll come to the details in a minute. I’m told you were ready to quit Oldham for a purser’s berth. That’s ethical. Would you consider it unethical to quit Oldham for Haarland?” ”

“ Marconi is here for is not particularly to get signals from passing ships far out at sea, but to try and get Poldhu! It made my hair stand on end at the thought of such wonders. And if he gets it he will have spanned the Atlantic—over 2,000 miles—with his wireless waves. He will have done the biggest scientific thing since Cyrus Field joined the old and the new worlds with his cable! Whoopee! Yow! Yow!
From that moment on I was walking on air. The inventor, whatever he may have felt, was calm, cool and collected, dignified at all times but always in a good humor. ”

“ Marconi tackled it all the instruments that were needed for telegraphing without wires were at hand but no one had quite caught on how to use them.
Nearly every one thinks, too, that it is far more wonderful to send wireless messages than it is to send messages over a wire; but this is not the case at all, though both, I trow, are wonderful enough. When we say a message is sent by wireless we do not mean, by a long shot, that it goes from the place where it is sent to the place where it is received without anything between them to carry it. ”

“ He had given up the society of all his friends except the Spaniard Alphonso, who was attached to him by the admiration they shared in common for the great Pietro. Podesta had left Padua and gone to Rome, with the full intention of disinheriting his relations—the Marconi family in Venice. The old man despaired of recovering the twin-daughter of Crescentia, who had been stolen from him in her infancy; and he now felt her loss all the more bitterly, on account of the hopes that had been awakened within him by the night-adventure of Antonio. ”

“ Some come-down for a man who had been a first wireless officer on a transatlantic liner and who had earned, at least on one round voyage, $200 a month, to say nothing of one who had worked with Marconi! ”

“ Marconi stared indecisively at the auctioneer for a moment. He said obscurely, “Taking your life isn’t enough; he wants more. And I thought I’d be able to see Lurline tonight. Excuse me, Ross. I’ve got to get over to the ship.” He hurried out.
Ross looked wonderingly after him, caught the eye of his bidder, and went back to work. By the time the auction was over and dawn was breaking in the west, Oldham Trading had bought nine lots of merchandise: three breathing, five flowering, and one a roll of microfilm. ”

“ But that is what you call buying an education for a fellow twice. It’s a shabby trick to work on one’s folks and I’ve often thought about it since. The only way I can ease off my conscience is by considering that this mild kind of bribery has been worked by nearly all fond parents in one way or another ever since the world began.
Hardly had I installed my new transmitter than summer was upon us and we were rushing off for our annual vacation at the seashore. Not far from Asbury Park, where we were to spend the heated months, there was a Marconi station. ”

“ Ross felt himself in the position of a diagnostician whose patient willfully refuses to tell where it hurts. The planet was sick—but wouldn’t admit it. Sick? Dying! Maybe he was on the wrong track entirely. Maybe the starships had nothing to do with it. Maybe there was nothing that Marconi knew that would fit a piece into the puzzle and make the answer come out all 10clear—but Ghost Town continued to grow acre by acre, year by year. And Oldham still hadn’t found him a secretary capable of writing her own name. ”

“ I can tell you that if you don’t like it here you won’t be happy on Sunward and you won’t like the moons. And you most especially and particularly won’t like being a purser. It’s the same job you’re doing now, but it pays less, offers you a six-by-eight cubicle to work and live in, and gives you nothing resembling a future to aim at. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d better get back inside. I’ve enjoyed our talk.”
Ross followed the captain gloomily. Nothing had changed inside; Ross lounged in the doorway inconspicuously picking up the eye of his bidder. Marconi was gone from the enclosure. ”

“ Then the rest of them on down to the month-old baby, and I swear to God he tried to say it. Well, you’re the Haarland Trading Corporation. Go on in.”
17 ..... 2 THEY were all naked. Why not? There’s no weather in a space ship. All of them laughed when Ross and Marconi came in through the lock except the baby, who was nursing at the breast of a handsome woman. Their laughter was what attracted Ross immediately. Cheerful—no meanness in it. The happy yelping of puppies at play with a red rubber bone. ”

“ If your excellency can induce Marcoline to leave me, I will make no objection; but I warn you that she must be won mildly. She is intelligent, she loves me, and she knows that she is independent; besides she reckons on me, and she has cause to do so. Speak to her to-day by herself; my presence would only be in your way. Wait till dinner is over; the interview might last some time."
"My dear Casanova, you are an honest man. I am delighted to have made your acquaintance."
"You do me too much honour. I may say that Marcoline will hear nothing of all this." ”

“ Marcoline smiled and I answered that she was my cousin, and that we were both Venetians.
A Frenchman is so bent on flattering a pretty woman that he will always do so, even if it be at the expense of a third party. Nobody could really think that Marcoline was my daughter, for though I was twenty years older than she was, I looked ten years younger than my real age, and so Marcoline smiled suggestively. ”

“ Though the wit and beauty of Marcoline had charmed me, her appetite charmed me still more; the reader knows that I have always liked women who eat heartily. And in Marseilles they make an excellent dish of a common fowl, which is often so insipid.
Those who like oil will get on capitally in Provence, for it is used in everything, and it must be confessed that if used in moderation it makes an excellent relish.
Marcoline was charming in bed. I had not enjoyed the Venetian vices for nearly eight years, and Marcoline was a beauty before whom Praxiteles would have bent the knee. ”

“ My thoughts jumped, of course, to Anthony. Yet how could he have known that I was travelling with ladies? And if by some Marconian miracle he had heard, why should he, who prided himself on "not bothering" with women, trouble to provide a dragoman at Alexandria?
I hurried to the dining car, and found Monny with her satellites seated at a table, three of them looking as calmly innocent as if they had not upset my well-laid scheme for their comfort. Biddy alone had a guilty air, because, perhaps, I was more important in her eyes than in the eyes of the others. ”

“ I am absolutely convinced that Marcolina herself, in order to save her lover from certain destruction, and simply upon his wish, would be perfectly willing to give this one night to his savior. For she, too, is a philosopher, and is therefore just as free from prejudices as we are. ”

“ The worthy man was overjoyed to be able to increase his daughter's happiness.
I, too, was pleased with Madame Audibert's tact and thoughtfulness; and as making Marcoline happy was to make me happy also, I expressed my gratitude to her in very warm terms.
I took the young Genoese to the play, to Marcoline's delight, for she would have liked the French very much if she could have understood them. We had an excellent supper together, in the course of which I told Marcoline of the pleasure which awaited her on the morrow. I thought she would have gone wild with joy. ”

“ I never knew Marcoline's capacities till then, for she confessed that her emotion was wholly fictitious, and designed to win the old man's good graces; and that if she had followed her own inclinations she would have laughed heartily. She was designed to act a part either upon the stage or on a throne. Chance had ordained that she should be born of the people, and her education had been neglected ”

“ MARCOMANNI (i.e. men of the mark, or border) , the name of a Suevic tribe. With kindred peoples they were often in conflict with the Roman Empire, and gave their name to the Marcomannic War, a struggle waged by the emperor Marcus Aurelius against them and the Quadi. ”

“ As I had made their acquaintance on my first visit to Marseilles, I introduced Marcoline to them as my niece, who only spoke Italian. As the two young ladies spoke the tongue of Tasso also, Marcoline was highly delighted. The younger sister, who was by far the handsomer of the two, afterwards became the wife of Prince Gonzaga Solferino. The prince was a cultured man, and even a genius, but very poor. For all that he was a true son of Gonzaga, being a son of Leopold, who was also poor, and a girl of the Medini family, sister to the Medini who died in prison at London in the year 1787. ”

“ On his departure I told him I hoped he would come and see us again, and when we were alone I congratulated Marcoline on her conquest, and shewed her that she might succeed almost as well as Mdlle. Crosin. But instead of being grateful she was furiously, angry.
"If you want to get rid of me," said she, "send me back to Venice, but don't talk to me about marrying."
"Calm yourself, my angel! I get rid of you? What an idea! Has my behaviour led you to suppose that you are in my way? This handsome, well-educated, and rich young man has come under my notice. ”

“ Marcoline, I congratulate you on having such an honest man for an uncle."
"That is really very fine," said M. Querini; and everybody exclaimed,
"Very affecting, very affecting indeed!"
The newly-found uncle departed, and we sat down to dinner, but in spirits which differed from those of yesterday. Marcoline bore traces of those mingled emotions of happiness and regret which move loyal hearts when they call to mind ther native land. M. Querini looked at her admiringly, and seemed to have all the confidence of success which a good action gives to the mind. M. Morosini sat a pleased spectator. ”

“ As a matter of fact, Marcoline had begun to talk a sort of French, but the most charming language in the world will not bear being spoken badly, and I had begged her not to speak at all till she had learned to express herself properly. It is better to remain silent than to make strangers laugh by odd expressions and absurd equivocations.
The less pretty, or rather the uglier, of the two ladies said that it was astonishing that the education of young ladies was neglected in such a shocking manner at Venice. "Fancy not teaching them French!" ”

“ Marcoline alone was calm and collected. Dessert was served, and still no one dared to say a word. All at once this wonderful girl said, in an inspired voice, as if speaking to herself,—
"We must adore the decrees of Divine Providence, but after the issue, since mortals are not able to discern the future, whether it be good or whether it be evil."
"What does that reflection relate to, my dear daughter?" said M. Querini, "and why do you kiss my hand now?" ”

“ Next morning I got M. Bono to give me a bill of exchange on M. Querini’s order, and at dinner-time Marcoline handed it over to her new protector, who wrote her a formal receipt. M. Morosini gave me the letters he had promised, and their departure was fixed for eleven o’clock the next day. The reader may imagine that our dinner-party was not over gay. Marcoline was depressed, I as gloomy as a splenetic Englishman, and between us we made the feast more like a funeral than a meeting of friends. ”