Electricity--the All-Pervading Intelligence

Clifford in The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

"Then there is electricity--the demon, the angel, the mighty physical power, the all-pervading intelligence!" exclaimed Clifford. "Is that a humbug, too? Is it a fact--or have I dreamt it--that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? Rather, the round globe is a vast head, a brain, instinct with intelligence! Or, shall we say, it is itself a thought, nothing but thought, and no longer the substance which we deemed it!"

"If you mean the telegraph," said the old gentleman. . .

Yes, Nathaniel Hawthorne dreamt, and time has made his dream a reality by which I write these words to you.