Edward Bellamy

“ It is only necessary to plant the most roguish lad before a phonograph of some nursery classic, to be sure of his whereabouts and his behavior till the machine runs down, when another set of cylinders can be introduced, and the entertainment carried on. As for the babies, Patti sings mine to sleep at bedtime, and, if they wake up in the night, she is never too drowsy to do it over again. When the children grow too big to be longer tied to their mother's apron-strings, they still remain, thanks to the children's indispensable, though out of her sight, within sound of her voice. ”

“ I exclaimed, “everybody surely is not content to borrow their books? They must want to have books of their own, to keep in their libraries.”
“Of course,” said Hamage. “What I said about borrowing books applies only to current literature of the ephemeral sort. Everybody wants books of permanent value in his library. Over yonder is the department of the establishment set apart for book-buyers.” ”

“ For, of course, when my experience that afternoon on the train flashed through my mind, I guessed at once that the solution of the mystery was in all probability merely a phonographic device for announcing the hour. Nevertheless, so thrilling and lifelike in effect were the tones of the voice I had heard that I confess I had not the nerve to light the gas to investigate till I had indued my more essential garments. Of course I found no lady in the room, but only a clock. ”

“ People learn and remember by impressions of sound instead of sight, that is all. The printer is, by the way, not the only artisan whose occupation phonography has destroyed. Since the disuse of print, opticians have mostly gone to the poor-house. The sense of sight was indeed terribly overburdened previous to the introduction of the phonograph, and, now that the sense of hearing is beginning to assume its proper share of work, it would be strange if an improvement in the condition of the people's eyes were not noticeable. ”

“ A good story is highly entertaining even when we have to get at it by the roundabout means of spelling out the signs that stand for the words, and imagining them uttered, and then imagining what they would mean if uttered. ”

“ When I suggested that, captivating as such clocks must be, one might in time grow weary of hearing the same sentiments reiterated, the manager pointed out that the phonographic cylinders were removable, and could be replaced by other sayings by the same author or on the same theme at any time. If one tired of an author altogether, he could have the head unscrewed from the top of the clock and that of some other celebrity substituted, with a brand-new repertory. ”

“ It is a very clever invention, and I don't wonder that it is popular with the ladies; but does it not occur to you that the inventor, if a man, was slightly inconsiderate? The rule of the American wife has hitherto been a despotism which could be tempered by a bad memory. Apparently, it is to be no longer tempered at all.”
Hamage laughed, but his mirth was evidently a little forced, and I inferred that the reflection I had suggested had called up certain reminiscences not wholly exhilarating. ”

“ Hamage replied; and then he explained that whereas the old-fashioned printed book, being handled by the reader, was damaged by use, and therefore had either to be purchased outright or borrowed at high rates of hire, the phonograph of a book being not handled, but merely revolved in a machine, was but little injured by use, and therefore phonographed books could be lent out for an infinitesimal price. Everybody had at home a phonograph box of standard size and adjustments, to which all phonographic cylinders were gauged. ”

“ This contrivance, which was attached to the side of the car by a cord, I proceeded to apply to my ears, as I saw the others doing.
For the next three hours I scarcely altered my position, so completely was I enthralled by my novel experience. Few persons can fail to have made the observation that if the tones of the human voice did not have a charm for us in themselves apart from the ideas they convey, conversation to a great extent would soon be given up, so little is the real intellectual interest of the topics with which it is chiefly concerned. ”

“ Everybody depended upon his indispensable to remind him in time of all undertakings and responsibilities. This service it was able to render by virtue of a simple enough adjustment of a phonographic cylinder charged with the necessary word or phrase to the clockwork in the indispensable, so that at any time fixed upon in setting the arrangement an alarm would sound, and, the indispensable being raised to the ear, the phonograph would deliver its message, which at any subsequent time might be called up and repeated. ”

“ I suggested that the saying of printers, pressmen, bookbinders, and costly machinery, together with the comparative indestructibility of phonographed as compared with printed books, must make them very cheap.
“They would be,” said Hamage, “if popular elocutionists, such as Playwell here, did not charge so like fun for their services. The public has taken it into its head that he is the only first-class elocutionist, and won't buy anybody else's work. ”

“ To the railroad engineer it served the purpose not only of a time-piece, for the works of the indispensable include a watch, but to its ever vigilant alarm he could intrust his running orders, and, while his mind was wholly concentrated upon present duties, rest secure that he would be reminded at just the proper time of trains which he must avoid and switches he must make. To the indispensable of the business man the reminder attachment was not less necessary. ”

“ Indeed, Hamage admitted that nowadays nobody with any taste for literature—if the word may for convenience be retained—thought of contenting himself with less than half a dozen renderings of the great poets and dramatists. “By the way,” he said to the clerk, “won't you just let my friend try the Booth-Barrett Company's 'Othello'? It is, you understand,” he added to me, “the exact phonographic reproduction of the play as actually rendered by the company.”
Upon his suggestion, the attendant had taken down a phonograph case and placed it on the counter. ”

“ One being made for the convenience of the President of the United States at public receptions was provided with forty-two buttons for the different States, and others for the principal cities of the Union, so that a caller, by proper manipulation, might, while shaking a handle, be addressed in regard to his home interests with an exactness of information as remarkable as that of the traveling statesmen who rise from the gazetteer to astonish the inhabitants of Wayback Crossing with the precise figures of their town valuation and birth rate, while the engine is taking in water. ”

“ A greater or smaller pile of little boxes lay beside their plates, and one after another they took from each its cylinders, placed them in their indispensables, and held the latter to their ears. The expression of the face in reading is so largely affected by the necessary fixity of the eyes that intelligence is absorbed from the printed or written page with scarcely a change of countenance, which when communicated by the voice evokes a responsive play of features. ”

“ People's ideas differing widely as to what constitutes improvement of time, the clocks varied accordingly in the nature of the edification they provided. There were religious and sectarian clocks, moral clocks, philosophical clocks, free-thinking and infidel clocks, literary and poetical clocks, educational clocks, frivolous and bacchanalian clocks. In the religious clock department were to be found Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, and Baptist time-pieces, which, in connection with the announcement of the hour and quarter, repeated some tenet of the sect with a proof text. ”

“ Railroad rides are naturally tiresome to persons who cannot read on the cars, and, being one of those unfortunates, I resigned myself, on taking my seat in the train, to several hours of tedium, alleviated only by such cat-naps as I might achieve. ”

“ Physiologists, moreover, promise us not only an improved vision, but a generally improved physique, especially in respect to bodily carriage, now that reading, writing, and study no longer involves, as formerly, the sedentary attitude with twisted spine and stooping shoulders. ”

“ If boys were what they were in my day, the rate at which their indispensables would get unaccountably lost or broken would be alarming.”
Hamage laughed, and admitted that the one he was carrying home was the fourth he had bought for his boy within a month. He agreed with me that it was hard to see how a boy was to get his growth under quite so much government; but his wife, and indeed the ladies generally, insisted that the application of the phonograph to family government was the greatest invention of the age. ”

“ However, to avoid all possible inconvenience to invalids, this little lever is provided, which at a touch will throw the phonograph out of gear or back again. It is customary when we put a talking or singing clock into a bedroom to put in an electric connection, so that by pressing a button at the head of the bed a person, without raising the head from the pillow, can start or stop the phonographic gear, as well as ascertain the time, on the repeater principle as applied to watches. ”

“ When I told Hamage of my experience of the night before with the talking clock in my room, he laughed uproariously.
“I am very glad you mentioned this just now,” he said, when he had quieted himself. “We have a couple of hours before the train goes out to my place, and I 'll take you through Orton's establishment, where they make a specialty of these talking clocks. I have a number of them in my house, and, as I don't want to have you scared to death in the night-watches, you had better get some notion of what clocks nowadays are expected to do.” ”

“ The mere announcing of the hours and quarters of hours was the simplest of the functions of these wonderful and yet simple instruments. There were few of them which were not arranged to “improve the time,” as the old-fashioned prayer-meeting phrase was. ”

“ Besides, he had bought an indispensable for his little boy.
“There is no class,” he said, “whose burdens the phonograph has done so much to lighten as parents. Mothers no longer have to make themselves hoarse telling the children stories on rainy days to keep them out of mischief. ”

“ By the new improvements in the intensifier, it is expected to enable all, except the stone-deaf, to enjoy the phonograph, even when connected, as on railroad trains, with a common telephonic wire. The stone-deaf will of course be dependent upon printed books prepared for their benefit, as raised-letter books used to be for the blind. ”

“ There is a strong movement already on foot to drop reading and writing entirely from the school course, but probably a compromise will be made for the present by substituting a shorthand or phonetic system, based upon the direct interpretation of the sound-waves themselves. ”

“ The inventor of the apparatus had, however, provided against so painful a dilemma by a simple attachment to the trumpet, which held it securely in position upon the shoulders behind the head, while the hands were left free for knife and fork. Having slyly noted the manner in which my neighbors had effected the adjustments, I imitated their example with a careless air, and presently, like them, was absorbing physical and mental aliment simultaneously. ”