Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/184

 so to overlap as to produce the illusion that the figure seen was actually in motion.

The lizeo, as I discovered, was an instrument found in every household. By means of it, not only the absent living could be made to speak before our eyes, but also the dead, even of remote ages. Every family possessed a very complete series of family portraits adapted to this instrument. These were taken and perpetuated by a process that rendered them practically indestructible.

My host kindly allowed me access to the safe in which was preserved this peculiar species of family archives. They afforded a reliable means of becoming acquainted with the family history to the remotest period. For connected with each set of portraits was a brief autobiographical sketch of the leading events in the life of the person represented. Though not extending, in general, beyond the limits of a monumental inscription, they possessed the one merit to which our epitaphs can most rarely lay claim: they were strictly accurate.

An account of the varzeo I must defer to another occasion. It was an instrument of somewhat too complex a nature for general private use. But one was to be found among the apparatus of every village institute, where it was employed as shall afterwards be described.