Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life

[29] that they have gone hand in hand with the progress of democracy, and have placed themselves at its service. A hundred years ago, when a prince wished to travel, he could at best only order clumsy horses to be attached to a clumsy state carriage in the hope of accomplishing, unless torrents or highwaymen interfered, thirty miles a day. It was not until the people got ready to ride that steeds swifter than the wind and stronger than the storm were harnessed in, and glittering bands of steel were spread in twin extension across the continent, that the carriages which bore the people might not swerve from their triumphant way. Two hundred years ago, if a king wished to convey to a distance the news of war or peace, or of the birth of an heir, he could do it best by lighting vast bonfires on successive hills, as in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus (τοιοίδε λαμπαδηφόρων νόμοι), until the tale was told. It was not until the people became as important as princes that all these lavish and clumsy fires were condensed into one little electric spark; and wires covered the land in a network of tracery, or sank below the ocean, that the humblest of the nation could telegraph to other lands and climes the news of war and peace in his household, or the