Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/142

 of the listener. But this summary in the words of Reva, with the remarks interspersed, seemed to throw a new light upon the subject.

It was in Utis's parlor that I first heard the phonographic notes. I asked, and obtained, permission to keep for a few days the thin metallic sheet on which the sounds were recorded. In the retirement of my study I placed the sheet in my phonograph, and was thus enabled, as often as I pleased,—and I was often pleased,—to listen to Reva's summary of the lecture. The voice with its melodious inflections conversing, as it were, on a subject of interest, in the softest, yet most expressive, of languages ever uttered by human tongue, had the effect of the sweetest music. At intervals would come in the deeper tones of her father's voice. The effect was so startlingly natural, that, at times, I could not help looking in the direction whence the sounds seemed to proceed. For such was the perfection of the instrument, that it not only reproduced each voice with all the fidelity of a photograph, but also indicated the distance and direction of the speaker. It was, naturally, not an uncommon practice for the people of this age to hold converse, in this way, with loved ones separated by distance or death.

With this explanation, it will readily be perceived how potent a means of education had become the telephone and phonograph. There was no need to gather, far from home influences, crowds of callow youths into assemblages whose numbers rather embolden to mischief and folly than incite to a noble emulation. Nor were the undeniable advantages of association with those of similar age lost. Curricles rendered distances of twenty