The process of color-photography proved invaluable in reproducing human features and expression. Nothing could exceed the perfection the art attained in 1935. Photographic studios were crowded with work. No skill of man had ever transferred to canvas the maiden’s blush, that emblem of purity, a shade Divine which mantles the brow of innocence only. The cameras of 1935 proved equal to that delicate task. The maid caught blushing in color photography blushed on, alas, forever. In detecting criminals, the new art proved invaluable. The Rogues’ Gallery was soon filled with studies in life and deviltry, so natural that one’s first impulse was to reach out for a pair of handcuffs.
Although painting, in 1999, and long before that date, had received a severe blow, the sculptor’s art remained unchanged. The sculptor was still supreme in his domain. No machine had yet been found that could take a block of pure Parian marble and carve out a Venus de Milo. Nature had invaded the artist’s studio and robbed him of an honored profession, but nature, great and mighty as she certainly is, had not yet, in 1999, found a way to fashion a block of cold marble into a thing of beauty, an exact image of life. Statuary was still regarded in the twentieth century as the acme of true art. The sculptor had not yet been dethroned; it is doubtful if he ever will be. The new and most ingenious machines of the twentieth century met their Manila on statuary. No machine can ever Limits to Inventive Genius. be built that will reason or think. It requires thought, judgment and artistic taste to create a statue. As the artist beholds a perfect model, he becomes thrilled with the love of his art. His heart and hands are guided by fires of ambition and his work excites admiration. The human brain is often duplicated by machinery, but the equal of the human heart, with its subtle emotions, must ever remain a Sealed Book to cold, unfeeling mechanism.
The same might be said of the human voice. In 1999, that peerless gift of God to man, that wonderful channel through which all emotions are expressed, had not been uprooted by mechanism. The Pattis, Nordicas and Melbas of the twentieth century were still held in high esteem, commanding princely stipends. The domain of all mechanical music, however, had been invaded to a large extent. Pianos, organs, orchestral and metallic instruments, which had attained a high degree of perfection in the nineteenth century, were generally discarded in the twentieth century. The tendency of the age favored mechanical music. The automatic musical instruments, which in 1889 had already attained a certain degree of perfection, were greatly improved. In the navy cornet bands were discarded and were substituted by large musical machines that played operas, marches, quicksteps, waltzes and patriotic airs with wonderful accuracy, with a volume of sound surpassing the best efforts of efficient brass bands. In the army, the brass band always held its own. The men who composed the band could march and fight, while no automatic substitute could be made to do this.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Improvements of The Age.
The advantages of Electrical conveyances. No fire departments required and Insurance companies lose their grip. Tobacco chewing and spitting prohibited in public places. Cigarettes are condemned by law. Moderation in the use of wines. Great advancement in medical science. A purified stage. Religious toleration becomes more universal. Jews give Jerusalem the “marble heart.”
The changes in our social system that signalized the period of 1999 were marked and contrasted very favorably with the conditions extant in 1899.
Street noises that rendered city and often village life unendurable, in 1899 were entirely Uproar of Vehicles Abolished. abolished in 1999. The clattering of horses’ hoofs became unknown in city life. Milk wagons, enormous furniture vans, the brewery wagon with its pyramid of beer kegs, rattling express carts, mail delivery wagons and thundering omnibuses no longer tortured the human ear in 1999. Automobiles had sent the clattering hoofs to Tophet and electricity, with pneumatic tires, was exclusively used in transportation.
It was a curious sight in 1999 to observe the life and animation of rapidly moving, yet noiseless, vehicles in city streets. Shouting, whistling and all loud noises were strictly prohibited on all public avenues. The jingling of bells, the yells of street Arabs, the thunder of wagon wheels over pavements and the pandemonium that reigned on all streets in 1899 became memories of a strange past.