Though he was born and educated in Italy, his mother was of British birth, and he speaks English as perfectly as he does Italian. Indeed, his blue eyes, light hair, and fair complexion give him decidedly the appearance of an Englishman, so that a stranger meeting him for the first time would never suspect his Italian parentage. His parents are still living, spending part of their time on their estate in Italy and part of the time in London. One of the first messages conveying the news of his success at St. John's went to them. He embarked in experimental research because he loved it, and no amount of honour or money tempts him from the pursuit of the great things in electricity which he sees before him. Besides being an inventor, he is also a shrewd business man, with a clear appreciation of the value of his inventions and of their possibilities when generally introduced. What is more, he knows how to go about the task of introducing them.
No sooner had Marconi announced the success of his Newfoundland experiments than critics began to raise objections. Might not the signals which he received have been sent from some passing ship fitted with wireless-telegraphy apparatus? Or, might they not have been the result of electrical disturbances in the atmosphere? Or, granting his ability to communicate across seas, how could he preserve the secrecy of his messages? If they were transmitted into space, why was it not possible for any one with a receiving instrument to take them? And was not his system of transmission too slow to make it useful, or was it not rendered uncertain by storms? And so on indefinitely. An acquaintance with some of the principles which Marconi considers fundamental, and on which his work has been based, will help to clear away these objections and give some conception of the real meaning and importance of the work at St. John's and of the plans for the future development of the inventor's system.
In the first place, Mr. Marconi makes no claim to being the first to experiment along the lines which led to wireless telegraphy, or the first to signal for short distances without wires. He is prompt with his acknowledgment to other workers in his field, and to his assistants. Professor S. F. B. Morse, the inventor of telegraphy; Dr. Oliver Lodge and Sir William Preece, of England; Edison, Tesla, and Professors Trowbridge and Dolbear, of America, and others had experimented along these lines, but it remained for Marconi to perfect a system and put it into practical working order. He took the coherer of Branley and Calzecchi, the oscillator of Righi, he used the discoveries of Henry and Hertz, but his creation, like that of the poet who gathers the words of men in a perfect lyric, was none the less brilliant and original.