Page:A Few Hours in a Far Off Age.djvu/6

Rh. But this is very many thousands of years hence, as I now plainly perceive by the model of a racehorse placed amongst other models of extinct mammals in the spacious court-yard below where I stand.

Vehicles of different sizes are passing swiftly on the ground and in the air. Some disappear through large openings in upper stories of enormous buildings.

I hear the cheerful hum of busy life, but it seems too minute a sound compared with all that movement. Ah, our vanity in the present renders it extremely difficult to hear the sounds from future ages, or see what is there passing without deeming it illusion. Yet I distinctly feel some of these beings touch my hand and nerve me as they pass into the great hall.

Here are three mounting the stairs. A lady about fifty years of age with her only children—a daughter between eighteen and nineteen, and son perhaps two years younger. It is very fortunate they are unable to see the staring habits of our century, for they are all so beautiful in form and mind I cannot remove my eyes from them. Every trace of wild-beast treachery and cruelty obliterated. Grand creatures are these! Benevolent, courageous and intelligent as only very numerous generations of truth loving ancestors could make them.

No, sceptics, "distance" has not "lent" this enchantment—that is, in the sense you imply—for I am near enough to hear the elder lady say:

"My darlings, this morning we will glance at some of the relics of what was once called the 'Christian Era,' subsequently designated by historians as 'The Age of Blood and Malevolence,' but which is, nevertheless, always of importance in the world's library from its having been