"Jules Verne - In the Year 2889b" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

addresses one of these authors awaiting his turn: "Capital! Capital, my dear
fellow, your last story. The scene where the village maid discusses interesting
philosophical problems with her lover shows your acute power of observation.
Never have the ways of country folk been better portrayed. Keep on, my dear
Archibald, keep on! Since yesterday, thanks to you, there is a gain of 5000
subscribers."
"Mr. John Last," he begins again, turning to a new arrival, "I am not as pleased
with your work. Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks the elements of
truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end; because you do
not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that from this or that motive, which
you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral natures.
Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex. In real life every act is
the result of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and these you must study, one
by one, if you would create a living character. 'But,' you will say, 'in order
to note these fleeting thoughts one must know them, must be able to follow them
in their capricious meanderings.' Why, any child can do that, as you know.
Simply make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a twofold
being, setting free the witness-personality so it may see, understand and
remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts. Just study
yourself as you live from day to day, my dear Last. Imitate your associate who I
complimented a moment ago. Let yourself be hypnotized. What's that? You have
tried it already? Not sufficiently, then, not sufficiently!"
Mr. Smith continues his round and enters the reporters' hall. Here 1500
reporters, in their respective places, facing an equal number of telephones, are
communicating to the subscribers the news of the world as gathered during the
night. The organization of this matchless service has often been described.
Besides his telephone, each reporter, as the reader is aware, has in front of
him a set of commutators, which enable him to communicate with any desired
telephotic line. Thus the subscribers not only hear the news but see the
occurrences. When an incident is described that is already past, photographs of
its main features are transmitted with the narrative. And there is no confusion
withal. The reporters' items, just like the different stories and all the other
component parts of the journal, are classified automatically according to an
ingenious system, and reach the hearer in due succession. Furthermore, the
hearers are free to listen only to what interests them. They may at pleasure pay
attention to one editor and ignore another.
Mr. Smith next addresses one of the ten reporters in the astronomical
department--a department still in the embryonic stage, but which will yet play
an important part in journalism.
"Well, Cash, what's the news?"
"We have phototelegrams from Mercury, Venus, and Mars."
"Are those from Mars of any interest?"
"Yes, indeed. There is a revolution in the Central Empire."


"And what of Jupiter?" asks Mr. Smith.
"Nothing as yet. We cannot quite understand their signals. Perhaps ours do not
reach them."
"That's bad," exclaims Mr. Smith, as he hurries away, not in the best of humor,
toward the hall of scientific editors. Heads bent over their electric computers,