Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/72

 the optical qualities of lenses, we shall be able to have our pictures in focus. The distressing flicker of moving pictures is an objection purely mechanical in its cause. But when, as they will be in a few years, all these objections except the first have been removed, and even when we have colour-photography in a true sense of the word, there will still remain one field to conquer. We must have, instead of moving pictures, something which represents all objects as solid. The difference is the difference between an ordinary photograph and a highly-improved stereoscopic picture magnified to life-size. When these advantages are attained it will be possible to represent, exactly as it happened, any event which has been suitably photographed.

The utility of this as a means of intelligent amusement will be at once perceived. Imagine the theatre of the future. Probably it will not be beyond the means of the rich, even when restrained from over-possession as it is evident that they must be, to have theatre-rooms in their own houses. But the masses will no doubt go to the theatre much as they do now. Only instead of seeing a company of actors and actresses, more or less mediocre, engaged in the degrading task of repeating time after time the same words, the same gestures, the same actions, they will see the performance of a complete "star" company, as once enacted at its