New-York tribune., 1921-10-30
gerous thing to be q novelist.

- rs dangerous thing to be novelist
r. isn't dangerous like crossing a street
n defiance Of traffic signals. Nor ia 1t
....-ous like changing seats in a rowboat, or
''A - the ether familisr methods Of show
sS .rs,s total disregard of destiny as an in
A,.t;on. but it is dangerous, just the same.
g.. instance, consider the case Of Edward
.',,.r,v who tried his hand. as far back as
'ss~ AZ prophesying what the world many
...rs In the future was going to be like as
-. in which to live--and fumbled nine
.sances out Of ten.
az Bellamy was born in 1850 and died in
sos His work Of prophecy was called aLook~
~ Backward" because the hero looked back
-. - mon the civilization Of the sos from the
,:.rnoirs of the year 1000 A. D. and found
s..,s Of which he could be proud.
wr Bethany let his imagination tase wings
:. a1ooking Backward" His book, hsing the
srst Of the prophetic type, created much conf
r,snt. People read it everywheres-on the
s,rsecars and on the horsehair furniture, for
.Ast vas the era of the horse in trunsporta-
,;,a and hpne furnishing. Most people liked
.,e book probably because It pictured Utopia
rb;ch they liked to believe was coming.
It didn't arrive though Of course it may put
:, appearance some time during the three
s,,re-and-odd years to come. In fact, not over
three OF four years ago people pretty general
10 had fallen into the belief that the human
s.mlv had put itself about as far away from
no millennium as it was possible to get So,
4 Bsllamy's Utopia finally does arrive it will
Asve the added distinction OF having started
from scratch.
"Looking Backward" concerned a young
Bostonian who could not sleep we'll nights,
and who had a subterranean chamber built
N the basement of his suburban home. There
IN might have been dscerned a weakness IL
,hs book at the start, for what could be more
ar;et than suburban Boston in the days be-
fore the electric car and the automobile? In
fsct what is more quiet now? But even the
slightest noises must have disturbed the hero
os Looking Backward" for he went ahead
With the construction OF his subterranean
chamber and then engaged the services Of q
hypnotst TO put him to sleep every night
With all those precautions it was no wonder
that the sleep proposition was overdone some
What and the hero did not wake up until the
alarm c4oCAS were SOuuu4IIS tnS year ZUUU
In fact, it wouldn't have been at all surpris-
ing if he had slept thousand years longer
When he woke up the hero found himself in
the clutches Of s. long-winded gentleman
named Dr. Leete-one of those individuals
rho know how and why everything is run
and ike nothing better than to talk about it.
The doctor tells about the superiorities Of the
civilization to which the hero has awakened
and as soon az he begins to talk the book be-
gins to fall down in the matter Of prophecy.
Here are some Of the things DR.. Leete, in his
descriptions Of life in the year 1000, left out
u the reckoning altogether:
AsspIcnes, sciretess, dirisi6Ies, automobiles,
submarines, trolley cars, phomosropks, sssb-
s9oys, scs-cps Of paper, slot machines, Bolshe-
gists, prohibition, poison gas, motorcycles,
fappsrs, motion pictures pJayer-pianos, sky
srupsys, drc0dnoughts, card iasdexes.
The list might be extended indefinitely. but
enough has been included to show the dangers
Of prophesying what more or less eccentric
civilization is. going to do. Not that anybody
else could have done the job better than Bel
lamy. AS matter Of fact, he hit some things
surprisingly well. He seems to have had an
inkling Of the radio concert in his idea of music
Of the twenty-drst century period. The hero
me escorts the slumber champion to the con-