Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/644

 has proved unable to do more than preserve a mere shadow of a picture,—a shadow that fades and vanishes until it disappears entirely and forever, just like the original. I have been thinking about it several years; and aided by all the discoveries of science that were accessible to me, I have become able to present vividly to human eyes any scene that existed hundreds or even thousands of years ago.”

“What? What?” was heard on all sides.

Curiosity, which my friend evidently aimed to awaken by his speech, was universal. But he went on:—

“If before the invention of glass and the telescope anybody should have appeared before a learned body of men like the present, and claimed that by means of certain instruments it would sometime become possible to look out over distances of many miles, even to study heavenly bodies, his story surely would have been listened to with distrust even by the most profound thinker of the time. The same would have happened if before the invention of the steam-engine or the telegraph any one should have claimed that a journey of several months might be made in a few hours, or that one might in a moment’s time hear from a person hundreds of miles away. To-day we should compassionately smile at the sceptics; yet I am sure that I shall not be believed if I make an analogous assertion before my experiment is finished. For I have succeeded in discovering an alloy out of which a tool may be made which excels the most perfect microscopes and telescopes of to-day, although it looks just like ordinary eye-glasses. These eye-glasses enable a person clearly to distinguish things at enormous distances, a milliard of miles, for example.”

“That is impossible! A fairy tale!” came from various parts of the hall.

“Considering what I have said,” my friend continued, “I had to expect that I would not be believed. It is the same as if half a thousand years ago I should have asserted what has since been conclusively proved,—that the earth moves around the sun. I am not at all surprised, therefore, that my esteemed guests think it impossible that I should have invented a better instrument than