The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-04-09

at once experienced the agreeable SEN
sation of having had an excellent lunch,
cooked and served in the best French
style.
"By and by" said the doctor, cheer
ingly, "wc will give you a little cleo
tric rest what people in 1891 in their
primitive language, called sleep,-after
which we will show you our scientific
library, where you will find 800, ,O0O,-
600 volumes at your disposal"
Great Scott, doctor! l don't want
to read all that! l tried to finish Kip
ling's book before l died, but his
wretched heroine, "Maisie," disgusted
me with all womankind. Besides, my
head aches now, and my brain is burn
ing"
"Patience!' said the doctor, gently;
"Rome was not built in day, and we
cannot do all things at once, not even
by electricity. You'll not have the
fatigue of reading all those books in
the old way, and l do not know Kip
ling. Do you allude to man or
hair-wash, sir? No, the old way of
reading is no more. We have changed
all that, the opthomologropher and the
nanemotype will, in five minutes, tran
scribe through your eyes in your brain
the contents of any or all these books,
according to your choice. The pro-
cess is infallible, and warranted for five
years at the low cost of five dollars
head.'
"Doctor," l said, after a moments
effort at taking all this in, "in 1891 l
was journalist, and l still have pre-
served, through the aons of time, the
journalistic characteristic c,-curiosity.
Will you tell me who the people are
who buy ideas and common sense? Do
tney buy it by weight"
Each one comes and asks for the
special style of ideas which it suits him
to absorb, and. -"
At this moment man entered the
office to have the ideophone applied to
his head, which was already swollen to
so great size that could not help
plying him.
doctor, tell me, is this man, with
all your science, happier than the bar
barians of 1891? Come, be frank. Do
you find this-er-new tangled per-
formance-er-com
"Oh, this man-hum-yes, but he is
a madman, and we are only now get
ting him in shape again. He went
mad after the great political crisis of
1892, when he ran for president of the
United States. The imbecile actually
thinks that we are interested in all that
rubbish, and comes here to swell his
head with political ideas. He comes
every day, poor mani!
"Well, doctor, | find your methods
as strange with the mind as with the
body"
"Young man, don't take it for
granted that you, who are not in the
same condition as ourselves, can pene-
trate in few minutes that which has
taken us so many centuries to discover.
Besides, have other data to give you,
and then | will leave you to your per-
sonal quest. For example, in the
medical profession, the doctors have
given up all drugs; leg, an arm, a
stomach, liver, are given to any man
who needs any one of these organs
when he applies forit. Nowadays doc
tors are the carpenters Of the body"
"What a blasphemy!'
"Why, if you please? Be calm," the
doctor gently admonished me. "Un-
derstand that, by the use of scientific
machinery, mems brains are all equal,
at least, so far as knowledge goes.
| Great men are no more. In lact, the
most useful men to-day are mechanics
and engineers,-that is to say, those
who are capable of making our life
scientifically agreeable and more COM
Portable; who can prolong it's duration.
Science, strictly speaking, is dead af-
ter having used up the limits ofhuman
knowledge and combinations. There
still remains each mans Imagination.
But already one of my colleagues is
working at machine for manufacture
ing imagination, like anything else,
though have my doubts as to his sue
ceeding. Ideas for us are combina-
tions of mechanical actions. and have
nothing to do with what | think is the
real product Of imagination This last
as well as emotion-is produced by
the human machine itself. How can
an emotion machine be produced? But
there is one assured fact: we are happy;
could your people oflS9l say as much?
Certainly not. Look back and think
of the colicky stuff you called poetry
of which a few specimens are still pre-
served as curiosities."
| dropped my eyes and colored
After a moment | said:
"Love-h'm! Well, in this sweetly
scientific and beautiful republic no rea-
sonablc man ever uses that childish
word. 1t is hard for you, | suppose,
to understand that humanity for cen
turies exhausted its might and strength
in pursuit of that absurdity they called