Chapter 2
Then he said to me: “I am reminded that I promised my wife to bring home some story-books for the children when I was in town to-day. The store is only a few steps down the street.” As we went along, he explained to me that nobody any longer pretended to charge his mind with the recollection of duties or engagements of any sort. 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. To all persons charged with weighty responsibilities depending upon accuracy of memory for their correct discharge, this feature of the indispensable rendered it, according to Hamage, and indeed quite obviously, an indispensable truly. 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. Provided with that, his notes need never go to protest through carelessness, nor, however absorbed, was he in danger of forgetting an appointment.
Thanks to these portable memories it was, moreover, now possible for a wife to intrust to her husband the most complex messages to the dressmaker. All she had to do was to whisper the communication into her husband's indispensable while he was at breakfast, and set the alarm at an hour when he would be in the city.
“And in like manner, I suppose,” suggested I, “if she wishes him to return at a certain hour from the club or the lodge, she can depend on his indispensable to remind him of his domestic duties at the proper moment, and in terms and tones which will make the total repudiation of connubial allegiance the only alternative of obedience. 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. Being fortunate, however, in the possession of a mercurial temperament, he presently rallied, and continued his praises of the artificial memory provided by the indispensable. In spite of the criticism which I had made upon it, I confess I was not a little moved by his description of its advantages to absent-minded men, of whom I am chief. Think of the gain alike in serenity and force of intellect enjoyed by the man who sits down to work absolutely free from that accursed cloud on the mind of things he has got to remember to do, and can only avoid totally forgetting by wasting tenfold the time required finally to do them in making sure by frequent rehearsals that he has not forgotten them! The only way that one of these trivialities ever sticks to the mind is by wearing a sore spot in it which heals slowly. If a man does not forget it, it is for the same reason that he remembers a grain of sand in his eye. I am conscious that my own mind is full of cicatrices of remembered things, and long ere this it would have been peppered with them like a colander, had I not a good while ago, in self-defense, absolutely refused to be held accountable for forgetting anything not connected with my regular business.
While firmly believing my course in this matter to have been justifiable and necessary, I have not been insensible to the domestic odium which it has brought upon me, and could but welcome a device which promised to enable me to regain the esteem of my family while retaining the use of my mind for professional purposes.
As the most convenient conceivable receptacle of hasty memoranda of ideas and suggestions, the indispensable also most strongly commended itself to me as a man who lives by writing. How convenient when a flash of inspiration comes to one in the night-time, instead of taking cold and waking the family in order to save it for posterity, just to whisper it into the ear of an indispensable at one's bedside, and be able to know it in the morning for the rubbish such untimely conceptions usually are! How often, likewise, would such a machine save in all their first vividness suggestive fancies, anticipated details, and other notions worth preserving, which occur to one in the full flow of composition, but are irrelevant to what is at the moment in hand! I determined that I must have an indispensable.
The bookstore, when we arrived there, proved to be the most extraordinary sort of bookstore I had ever entered, there not being a book in it. Instead of books, the shelves and counters were occupied with rows of small boxes.
“Almost all books now, you see, are phono-graphed,” said Hamage.
“The change seems to be a popular one,” I said, “to judge by the crowd of book-buyers.” For the counters were, indeed, thronged with customers as I had never seen those of a bookstore before.
“The people at those counters are not purchasers, but borrowers,” 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. I suggested that the phonograph, at any rate, could scarcely have replaced picture-books. But here, it seemed, I was mistaken, for it appeared that illustrations were adapted to phonographed books by the simple plan of arranging them in a continuous panorama, which by a connecting gear was made to unroll behind the glass front of the phonograph case as the course of the narrative demanded.
“But, bless my soul!” 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.”
The counter which he indicated being less crowded than those of the borrowing department, I expressed a desire to examine some of the phonographed books. As we were waiting for attendance, I observed that some of the customers seemed very particular about their purchases, and insisted upon testing several phonographs bearing the same title before making a selection. As the phonographs seemed exact counterparts in appearance, I did not understand this till Hamage explained that differences as to style and quality of elocution left quite as great a range of choice in phonographed books as varieties in type, paper, and binding did in printed ones. This I presently found to be the case when the clerk, under Ham-age's direction, began waiting on me. In succession I tried half a dozen editions of Tennyson by as many different elocutionists, and by the time I had heard
“Where Claribel low lieth”
rendered by a soprano, a contralto, a bass, and a baritone, each with the full effect of its quality and the personal equation besides, I was quite ready to admit that selecting phonographed books for one's library was as much more difficult as it was incomparably more fascinating than suiting one's self with printed editions. 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. The front was an imitation of a theatre with the curtain down. As I placed the transmitter to my ears, the clerk touched a spring and the curtain rolled up, displaying a perfect picture of the stage in the opening scene. Simultaneously the action of the play began, as if the pictured men upon the stage were talking. Here was no question of losing half that was said and guessing the rest. Not a word, not a syllable, not a whispered aside of the actors, was lost; and as the play proceeded the pictures changed, showing every important change of attitude on the part of the actors. Of course the figures, being pictures, did not move, but their presentation in so many successive attitudes presented the effect of movement, and made it quite possible to imagine that the voices in my ears were really theirs. I am exceedingly fond of the drama, but the amount of effort and physical inconvenience necessary to witness a play has rendered my indulgence in this pleasure infrequent. Others might not have agreed with me, but I confess that none of the ingenious applications of the phonograph which I had seen seemed to be so well worth while as this.
Hamage had left me to make his purchases, and found me on his return still sitting spellbound.
“Come, come,” he said, laughing, “I have Shakespeare complete at home, and you shall sit up all night, if you choose, hearing plays. But come along now, I want to take you upstairs before we go.”
He had several bundles. One, he told me, was a new novel for his wife, with some fairy stories for the children,--all, of course, phonographs. 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. 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. Whatever charges or instructions she desires them not to forget, whatever hours or duties she would have them be sure to remember, she depends on the indispensable to remind them of.”
At this I cried out. “It is all very well for the mothers,” I said, “but the lot of the orphan must seem enviable to a boy compelled to wear about such an instrument of his own subjugation. 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.
Then I asked a question which had repeatedly occurred to me that day,-- What had become of the printers?
“Naturally,” replied Hamage, “they have had a rather hard time of it. Some classes of books, however, are still printed, and probably will continue to be for some time, although reading, as well as writing, is getting to be an increasingly rare accomplishment.”
“Do you mean that your schools do not teach reading and writing?” I exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, they are still taught; but as the pupils need them little after leaving school,--or even in school, for that matter, all their text-books being phonographic,--they usually keep the acquirements about as long as a college graduate does his Greek. 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. This is, of course, the only logical method for the visual interpretation of sound. Students and men of research, however, will always need to understand how to read print, as much of the old literature will probably never repay phonographing.”
“But,” I said, “I notice that you still use printed phrases, as superscriptions, titles, and so forth.”
“So we do,” replied Hamage, “but phonographic substitutes could be easily devised in these cases, and no doubt will soon have to be supplied in deference to the growing number of those who cannot read.”
“Did I understand you,” I asked, “that the text-books in your schools even are phonographs?”
“Certainly,” replied Hamage; “our children are taught by phonographs, recite to phonographs, and are examined by phonographs.”
“Bless my soul!” I ejaculated.
“By all means,” replied Hamage; “but there is really nothing to be astonished at. 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. 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. The phonograph has at last made it possible to expand the mind without cramping the body.”
“It is a striking comment on the revolution wrought by the general introduction of the phonograph,” I observed, “that whereas the misfortune of blindness used formerly to be the infirmity which most completely cut a man off from the world of books, which remained open to the deaf, the case is now precisely reversed.”
“Yes,” said Hamage, “it is certainly a curious reversal, but not so complete as you fancy. 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.”
As we entered the elevator to ascend to the upper floors of the establishment, Hamage explained that he wanted me to see, before I left, the process of phonographing books, which was the modern substitute for printing them. Of course, he said, the phonographs of dramatic works were taken at the theatres during the representations of plays, and those of public orations and sermons are either similarly obtained, or, if a revised version is desired, the orator re-delivers his address in the improved form to a phonograph; but the great mass of publications were phonographed by professional elocutionists employed by the large publishing houses, of which this was one. He was acquainted with one of these elocutionists, and was taking me to his room.
We were so fortunate as to find him disengaged. Something, he said, had broken about the machinery, and he was idle while it was being repaired. His work-room was an odd kind of place. It was shaped something like the interior of a rather short egg. His place was on a sort of pulpit in the middle of the small end, while at the opposite end, directly before him, and for some distance along the sides toward the middle, were arranged tiers of phonographs. These were his audience, but by no means all of it. By telephonic communication he was able to address simultaneously other congregations of phonographs in other chambers at any distance. He said that in one instance, where the demand for a popular book was very great, he had charged five thousand phonographs at once with it.
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. Consequently the authors stipulate that he shall interpret their productions, and the publishers, between the public and the authors, are at his mercy.”
Playwell laughed. “I must make my hay while the sun shines,” he said. “Some other elocutionist will be the fashion next year, and then I shall only get hack-work to do. Besides, there is really a great deal more work in my business than people will believe. For example, after I get an author's copy”--
“Written?” I interjected.
“Sometimes it is written phonetically, but most authors dictate to a phonograph. Well, when I get it, I take it home and study it, perhaps a couple of days, perhaps a couple of weeks, sometimes, if it is really an important work, a month or two, in order to get into sympathy with the ideas, and decide on the proper style of rendering. All this is hard work, and has to be paid for.”
At this point our conversation was broken off by Hamage, who declared that, if we were to catch the last train out of town before noon, we had no time to lose.
Of the trip out to Hamage's place I recall nothing. I was, in fact, aroused from a sound nap by the stopping of the train and the bustle of the departing passengers. Hamage had disappeared. As I groped about, gathering up my belongings, and vaguely wondering what had become of my companion, he rushed into the car, and, grasping my hand, gave me an enthusiastic welcome. I opened my mouth to demand what sort of a joke this belated greeting might be intended for, but, on second thought, I concluded not to raise the point. The fact is, when I came to observe that the time was not noon, but late in the evening, and that the train was the one I had left home on, and that I had not even changed my seat in the car since then, it occurred to me that Hamage might not understand allusions to the forenoon we had spent together. Later that same evening, however, the consternation of my host and hostess at my frequent and violent explosions of apparently causeless hilarity left me no choice but to make a clean breast of my preposterous experience. The moral they drew from it was the charming one that, if I would but oftener come to see them, a railroad trip would not so upset my wits.