Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/318

 before our eyes distant scenes, not as they had been at some past time, but as they appeared at that moment. The mirror was, in reality, a peculiar metallic screen, to which were transferred, somewhat as sound is by the telephone, the pictures falling upon a suitably prepared screen placed before the scene to be transferred. I saw with astonishment the scene of the battle of Largs bathed in the summer moonlight, that shimmered in the rippled waters of the Clyde, and obscurely revealed the outlines of the isle of Cumbrae. Trees waved in the wind, a ship at anchor rocked in the rising tide, small clouds passing before the moon would temporarily obscure the midnight scene. While the audience gazed in silence on this living picture, Ulmene, at the fine instrument belonging to the ball, softly played an improvisation, introducing such selections from the national airs as her exquisite taste judged appropriate to the scene.

In a similar manner was displayed to our eyes "the castled crag" of Edinburgh, crowned with edifices whose forms were but indistinctly discernible in the moonlight, here much interrupted by flying scud. Glencoe, again, was evidently the focus of a violent storm. Naught could be seen but an occasional glimpse, from amid rolling masses of vapor, of a mountain peak of savage grandeur; while from the organ pealed the wild notes of a Highland pibroch, now heard, probably, for the first time after an interval of thousands of years.

In spite of the disadvantages arising in the views of some localities from the untoward state of the weather, a difficulty to which exhibitions with the varzeo were liable, Reva had reason to be gratified with the reception