“This method—scientific, accurate and complete, in conception and execution—has enabled me to foretell accurately the condition of men, manners and matter on this earth fifty, a hundred or a thousand years from now.
“‘By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth and idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at far distance, true colors and shapes.’
“Although I am strong and lusty for my years, the span of my life is drawing to a close, and I have so far been able only to record as a test prophecy, the conditions which will prevail half a century from now.
“With a portion of this history, impartially written in advance of the events therein recorded, I now entrust you, that you may the better enter into the spirit of my life-work. The roll which I here hand you, contains a fragment of history which will be true when you have attained my age of three score years and ten.
“I am desirous of a helper who shall not only aid me during my lifetime, to record events, but carry on the wonderful work, when these eyes shall long have been sightless, these hands but useless dust. Should the concise prophetic record which I here give you attract your interested attention, and the bold and original method by which it is attained win your confidence, I should be glad to have you become at once my assistant, and eventually my successor.
“The key to the method I have long ago reduced to writing, so that in case of my death, before imparting all the details to any one, the science and the art of scientific prophecy shall not die with me, but shall live forever, like my own immortal soul.”
Taking the manuscript, with an eagerness which I could scarce conceal, I expressed my appreciation of his confidence and good will, no less than my admiration of the wonderful method by which mere dots and lines, veriest material and mechanical exponents, should reveal the secrets of things past and to come.
The venerable professor bowed me courteously from his presence, and quitting the old mansion, depository of so much knowledge, of so many hopes, I was soon within earshot of the rattle and roar of the great city.
“Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,
Which men call Earth,”