“What is there appertaining to this earth in which we might advance our knowledge, by invention or otherwise?” The little monk looked at me with a mirthful face, putting his jolly head on one side, and with a look in his eyes as if he would say, “Don’t you wish you may pump me?” said:-- “I must tell you plainly, that by our bond we are forbidden to tell to mortals the secrets we possess, but I will just give you a little idea or two that you may experimentalize upon, and see what you are clever enough to make of notions that _we_ have already established as practical scientific facts. “Electricity with you is only in its infancy, it is but just born--yet you have taken several steps in the right direction; you have the phonograph, the electrophone, and the telephone, all of which are very well in their way, but you must go further with them. If you are clever enough you can make the phonograph convey _thought_ as well as speech, so that you and I, being a mile apart, could, with the help of an improved phonograph, convey our _thoughts_ to each other. With a certain instrument conversation with departed spirits might be held and the very secrets of the grave revealed, and the great----” But here the wind again sighed through the valley, and the monk again bowed and meekly crossed himself, having evidently ventured too far beyond the bounds of his suggestions. “The electrophone,” said he, “may easily be improved, so that in combination with a certain machine which I may tell you is _on the eve of being invented_ in America, will not only give you the voice of the person speaking at a distance, but also his or her likeness with every line of the features expressing the individuality of the person under notice. “Electricians of the Nineteenth Century! why, you have only reached ‘A’ in the alphabet of electrical possibilities. How absurd of you to use horseflesh to draw loads, and raise or lower heavy masses, and to use steam--noisy, bulky steam--for locomotives and marine engines, and to write with ink and even use hand-power to sew with, when everything could be done quicker, easier, cheaper, and cleaner by the _touchstone of all future motion_--electricity!