Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/69

 a device for utilising the ætheric waves which the source of power wirelessly transmits, flight will be at least as simple a matter as wireless telegraphy is to-day.

When it is possible to cross the Atlantic in a day by means of surface-riding ships, propelled, like the flying-machines, by ætheric force, the field of amusement will be vastly increased, and although (as I shall show) it will no longer be necessary to travel in order to "see the sights" of any part of the world, the pleasure of being present at the actual events of life in different countries will probably never pall. So long as any parts of the world remain comparatively unfamiliar, young men and maidens will love travel. When it is possible, wrapped in warm woollens and provided with portable heating-appliances, to pay a short visit to the Arctic circle and enjoy the matchless spectacle of the Aurora Borealis amid the awe-compelling obscurities of the Polar night: when, with even less inconvenience, we can take a trip to the tropics and witness, here the unchangeable processes of Nature's luxuriance, there the perhaps immutable conservatism of the East, the new leisure of the coming time will have great stores of recreation for those happy enough to live in the dawning twenty-first century.

The more distinctively intellectual pleasures of the new age will be much subserved by one