Octave Uzanne

“ We see nothing but copies of all sorts; copies of Old Masters accommodated to modern taste, adaptations ever false of epochs forever gone by, trite copies of nature as seen with a photographer’s eye, insipid patchwork imitations of frightful war subjects such as have made Meissonier famous; nothing new, nothing that takes us out of our own humanity, nothing that transports us elsewhere. ”

“ The art of being moved by the wit, the gaiety, and the thought of others must soon demand greater facilities. I believe, then, in the success of everything which will favor and encourage the indolence and selfishness of men; the elevator has done away with the toilsome climbing of stairs; phonography will probably be the destruction of printing. Our eyes are made to see and reflect the beauties of nature, and not to wear themselves out in the reading of texts ”

“ Taking his stand on the theory of Helmholtz, that the sun is a vast sphere in process of cooling, and, by the law of gravity, of shrinking in proportion as it cools, and having estimated the energy of the solar heat as four hundred and seventy-six million horse-power to the superficial square foot of its photo-sphere, Sir William had demonstrated that the radius of the photosphere grows about one-hundredth part shorter every two thousand years, and that it is therefore quite possible to fix the precise hour when its warmth will be insufficient to maintain life on our planet. ”

“ In that divine moment, that avenging instant, painting will die of inanition; governments will perhaps at last perceive their dense folly in not having systematically discouraged the arts as the only practical way of protecting and exalting them. In a few countries, resolved upon a general reform, the ideas of the iconoclasts will prevail; museums will be burned down, that they may no longer influence budding genius; the commonplace in all its forms will be tabooed ”

“ Valets and ladies'-maids will soon learn how to put them in place, the axle of the cylinder upon the two supports of the motor, and will carry them to master or mistress at the hour of awakening. Lying soft and warm upon their pillow they may hear it all, as if in a dream — foreign telegrams, financial news, humorous articles, the news of the day. ”

“ The great philosopher had surprised us no less by his treatment of the antiquity of the earth, which he showed to be a question of pure mechanics. In the face of geologists and naturalists he gave it a past history of not more than a score of millions of years, and showed that life had awakened upon earth in the very hour of the sun's birth — whatever may have been the origin of this fecundating star, whether the bursting of a pre-existing world or the concentration of nebulae formerly diffused. ”

“ Especially the world would cease to be the unclean slaughter-house of peaceful creatures, a gruesome larder set forth for the gratification of gluttony, and would become a fair garden, sacred to hygiene and the pleasure of the eye. ”

“ Life would be respected both in beasts and in plants, and over the entrance to this Paradise Regained, become a colossal museum of the creatures of God, might be written, "Look, but do not touch the exhibits." ”

“ If we are reading one of our great newspapers it constrains us to acquire a certain dexterity in the art of turning and folding the sheets; if we hold the paper wide open it is not long before the muscles of tension are overtaxed, and finally, if we address ourselves to the book, the necessity of cutting the leaves and turning them one after another, ends by producing an enervated condition very distressing in the long run. ”

“ He gave us to understand that the Old World would little by little give up its claim to omnipotence, and America would lead the van in the march of progress. Oceanica, born only yesterday, would develop superbly, throwing off the mask of its ambitions and taking a prominent place in the universal concert of the nations. ”

“ On this Friday evening Sir William had announced to his brilliant audience of savants and men of the world that the end of the terrestrial globe and of the human race was mathematically certain to occur in precisely ten million years. ”

“ The fly will always be the vulture of the microbe, the most harmless bird the eagle of the fly; the wolf will keep on presenting himself with legs of lamb, and the peaceful sheep will continue, as in the past, to be 'the tiger of the grass.' Let us follow the general law, and while awaiting our turn to be devoured, let us devour. ”

“ The Author Exploiting his Own Works. "Journalism will naturally be transformed; the highest situations will be reserved for robust young men with strong, resonant voices, trained rather in the art of enunciation than in the search for words or the turn of phrases; literary mandarinism will disappear, literators will gain only an infinitely small number of hearers, for the important point will be to be quickly informed in a few words without comment. ”

“ Art will then be a closed aristocracy; its production will be rare, mystic, devout, loftily personal. It will perhaps command at most ten or twelve apostles in each generation, with something like a hundred ardent disciples to admire and encourage them. ”

“ Julius Pollock, gentle vegetarian and learned naturalist, usually a silent boon companion, amused himself by imagining the effect upon human customs of the success of certain interesting chemical experiments transforming the conditions of our social life. ”

“ And yet it is the duty of art, whether by music or poetry or painting, at any cost to carry us beyond ourselves, that for an instant at least we may hover in that sphere of the unreal where we may take the idealistic aëropathy cure. ”

“ Authors who are not sensitive to vocal harmonies, or who lack the flexibility of voice necessary to a fine utterance, will avail themselves of the services of hired actors or singers to warehouse their work in the accommodating cylinder. ”

“ Editorial Rooms of the Phonographic Journal of the Future..
(Dictating News Cylinders.) "Either the books must go, or they must swallow us up. I calculate that, take the whole world over, from eighty to one hundred thousand books appear every year; at an average of a thousand copies, this makes more than a hundred millions of books, the majority of which contain only the wildest extravagances or the most chimerical follies, and propagate only prejudice and error. Our social condition forces us to hear many stupid things every day. ”

“ I replied, gaily, going on to develop my vision of the future; "nothing will be lacking for them on this head; they may intoxicate themselves on literature as on pure water, and as cheaply, too, for there will then be fountains of literature in the streets as there are now hydrants.
"At every open place in the city little buildings will be erected, with hearing tubes corresponding to certain works hung all around for the benefit of the studious passer-by. They will be easily worked by the mere pressure of a button. ”

“ Blackcross went on, "that the hour is at hand when the whole universe will find itself saturated with pictures, dull landscapes, mythological figures, historic episodes, still life, and all other works soever; the very negroes will have no more of them. ”

“ Africa, he added, that continent ever explored and ever mysterious, where at a moment's warning countries of thousands of square miles are discovered — Africa so painfully won to civilization, does not seem called to play an eminent part, notwithstanding her immense reservoir of men. ”

“ You will surely agree with me that reading, as we practise it today, soon brings on great weariness; for not only does it require of the brain a sustained attention which consumes a large proportion of the cerebral phosphates, but it also forces our bodies into various fatiguing attitudes. ”

“ The Author Depositing his Voice at the Patent-Office to Prevent Counterfeiting. "The ladies will no longer say in speaking of a successful author, 'What a charming writer!' All shuddering with emotion, they will sigh, 'Ah, how this "Teller's" voice thrills you, charms you, moves you! ”

“ The Government will realize great profits by these patents.
"Having thus made himself right with the law, the author will talk his work, fixing it upon registering cylinders. He will himself put these patented cylinders on sale; they will be delivered in cases for the consumption of hearers.
"Men of letters will not be called Writers in the time soon to be, but rather, Narrators. Little by little the taste for style and for pompously decorated phrases will die away, but the art of utterance will take on unheard-of importance. ”

“ The railways will replace the parlor car by a sort of Pullman Circulating Library, which will cause travellers to forget the weariness of the way while leaving their eyes free to admire the landscapes through which they are passing. ”

“ Phonographic Literature for the Promenade. "People of small means will not be ruined, you must admit, by a tax of four or five cents for an hour's 'hearing,' and the fees of the wandering author will be relatively important by the multiplicity of hearings furnished to each house in the same quarter.
"Is this all? By no means. The phonography of the future will be at the service of our grandchildren on all the occasions of life. Every restaurant-table will be provided with its phonographic collection ”

“ I replied. "There will be registering cylinders as light as celluloid penholders, capable of containing five or six hundred words and working upon very tenuous axles, and occupying not more than five square inches all the vibrations of the voice will be reproduced in them; we shall attain to perfection in this apparatus as surely as we have obtained precision in the smallest and most ornamental watches.
"As to the electricity, that will often be found in the individual himself. Each will work his pocket apparatus by a fluent current ingeniously set in action ”