In the Year 2889 | Page 3

Paris mansion. The telephote! Here is another of the great triumphs of
science in our time. The transmission of speech is an old story; the
transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by
wires is a thing but of yesterday. A valuable invention indeed, and Mr.
Smith this morning was not niggard of blessings for the inventor, when
by its aid he was able distinctly to see his wife notwithstanding the
distance that separated him from her. Mrs. Smith, weary after the ball

or the visit to the theater the preceding night, is still abed, though it is
near noontide at Paris. She is asleep, her head sunk in the lace-covered
pillows. What? She stirs? Her lips move. She is dreaming perhaps? Yes,
dreaming. She is talking, pronouncing a name his name--Fritz! The
delightful vision gave a happier turn to Mr. Smith's thoughts. And now,
at the call of imperative duty, light-hearted he springs from his bed and
enters his mechanical dresser.
Two minutes later the machine deposited him all dressed at the
threshold of his office. The round of journalistic work was now begun.
First he enters the hall of the novel-writers, a vast apartment crowned
with an enormous transparent cupola. In one corner is a telephone,
through which a hundred Earth Chronicle littérateurs in turn recount to
the public in daily installments a hundred novels. Addressing one of
these authors who was waiting his turn, "Capital! Capital! my dear
fellow," said he, "your last story. The scene where the village maid
discusses interesting philosophical problems with her lover shows your
very acute power of observation. Never have the ways of country folk
been better portrayed. Keep on, my dear Archibald, keep on! Since
yesterday, thanks to you, there is a gain of 5000 subscribers."
"Mr. John Last," he began again, turning to a new arrival, "I am not so
well pleased with your work. Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks
the elements of truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to
the end; because you do not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that
from this or that motive, which you assign without ever a thought of
dissecting their mental and moral natures. Our feelings, you must
remember, are far more complex than all that. In real life every act is
the resultant of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and these you
must study, each by itself, if you would create a living character. 'But,'
you will say, 'in order to note these fleeting thoughts one must know
them, must be able to follow them in their capricious meanderings.'
Why, any child can do that, as you know. You have simply to make use
of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a two-fold being,
setting free the witness-personality so that it may see, understand, and
remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts. Just
study yourself as you live from day to day, my dear Last. Imitate your

associate whom I was complimenting a moment ago. Let yourself be
hypnotized. What's that? You have tried it already? Not sufficiently,
then, not sufficiently!"
Mr. Smith continues his round and enters the reporters' hall. Here 1500
reporters, in their respective places, facing an equal number of
telephones, are communicating to the subscribers the news of the world
as gathered during the night. The organization of this matchless service
has often been described. Besides his telephone, each reporter, as the
reader is aware, has in front of him a set of commutators, which enable
him to communicate with any desired telephotic line. Thus the
subscribers not only hear the news but see the occurrences. When an
incident is described that is already past, photographs of its main
features are transmitted with the narrative. And there is no confusion
withal. The reporters' items, just like the different stories and all the
other component parts of the journal, are classified automatically
according to an ingenious system, and reach the hearer in due
succession. Furthermore, the hearers are free to listen only to what
specially concerns them. They may at pleasure give attention to one
editor and refuse it to another.
Mr. Smith next addresses one of the ten reporters in the astronomical
department--a department still in the embryonic stage, but which will
yet play an important part in journalism.
"Well, Cash, what's the news?"
"We have pbototelegrams from Mercury, Venus, and Mars."
"Are those from Mars of any interest?"
"Yes, indeed. There is a revolution in the Central Empire."
"And what of Jupiter?" asked Mr. Smith.
"Nothing as yet. We cannot quite understand their signals. Perhaps ours
do not reach them."

"That's bad," exclaimed Mr. Smith, as he hurried away, not in the best
of humor, toward the hall of the scientific editors.