Looking forward : $b a dream of the United States of the Americas in 1999Bird, Arthur
Science
Looking forward : $b a dream of the United States of the Americas in 1999
Bird, Arthur
Twentieth century -- Forecasts; United States -- Civilization
From an individual point of view, in the daily routine of life, a
century appears to be an embryo-eternity. When time is gauged with
clock like precision and to each minute is allotted its full value,
a century assumes an unfathomable depth. But, in the cycles of time,
a century is a mere footprint in the passage of time; a small link
in the endless chain of eternity.
Time is easily annihilated by mental process. Witness the feat
performed by Mahomet, related in a certain chapter of the [Mahomet
on Rapid Transit.] Koran. The faithful are informed in this passage
of the Koran that the Prophet was awakened one morning from a deep,
refreshing slumber by an angel and was summoned into Paradise
to confer with Allah. While in the act of ascending to Heaven,
Mahomet's foot struck and upset a pitcher of water which stood near
the couch. The Koran unblushingly proclaims that the Prophet held 999
long conferences with Allah and had safely returned to his couch,
ready for another snooze, before the water in the falling pitcher
had time to spill on the floor!
There is something very refreshing in this narrative. It shows that
Mahomet was well up in rapid transit matters and again it proves the
sublime virtue of a man, a son of the desert, a turbaned Washington,
who couldn't tell a lie and who resisted the temptation to make this
batch of conferences with Allah an even thousand. Mahomet missed his
calling; he ought to have been a newspaper reporter.
Assuming the prerogatives of the Koran, the author, at one stroke
of his pen, proposes to annihilate time. Plunged into a profound
slumber he had a dream. Great men and little men; the renowned and
the ignorant; the philosopher and the Australian bushman; quakers
and cannibals; the prince and the peasant, all these and myriads of
others, have had their dreams. Love's dream has been the theme of all
ages, the burden of songs untold. The dream of conquest, the dream of
ambition and dreams of every human passion and desire have throbbed
within the human brain.
But the author's dream is not swayed by human emotions; it is not
the handmaid of [America's Giant Republic, 1999.] passion. It is a
dream that unseals the book of the future and reveals to the world
the colossal, peace-loving, giant republic of the universe in the
year of our Lord, 1999,
The United States of the Americas, the mightiest nation ever known
in contemporaneous history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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