Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/109



and I did not sit out on the roof this evening. He proposed, instead, to help me unpack my trunks, and arrange the contents. Hitherto I had scarcely looked into them; nor, in spite of my host's assurances, could I gain any strong sense of propriety in them. Yet while Utis, by the brilliant electric light, unpacked those things that, I felt certain, had never been packed by my hands, a strange feeling of familiarity with the different objects would grow upon me. Surely those books, writing-implements, table-ornaments, and pictures, had once been mine. Alt, however, had undergone a peculiar change,—a change analogous to the difference between my personal history as present to my consciousness, and that attributed to me by Utis. Last of all, he produced from the second trunk, and placed on the table, an article having some resemblance, both in size and shape, to a writing-desk that was once mine. On being opened. however, the interior presented a most unfamiliar appearance. It was a phonograph of the latest construction.

"This instrument, or, rather, the first crude idea, was known as early as your period. In its present form it

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