Learned
men, the leaders and great physicists, many of those I had seen in the
morning had reached the Hall. These were constantly augmented by new
arrivals from the more distant Schools of Philosophy, Design and Art,
while streaming in at every door came the joyous multitude, and the
great vault of the Hall of Attention resounded with the rolling chorus.
"It was a moving, an impossible spectacle. The balconies swept upward
to a wall of polished granite. They were supported by columns of mosaic
marble; the floor of roughened glass was concealed with benches of a
gray stone, whose backs were carved in a tracery of branches, over which
were thrown pale yellow rugs or shawls; the broad ceiling was divided
into deep, rectangular recesses _plafonded_ with opalescent glass, and
these recesses were made by the intersection of huge girders of the blue
metal, while provisions were made throughout for electric lighting by
tall glass cylinders, which glow like pillars of lambent flame, and
stood upright, affixed to the walls at regular intervals, or concealed
in cavities along the ceiling, or grouped like the fasces of the Roman
lictors, at the railings of the balconies.
"A wide platform occupied the center of this vast auditorium, and upon
this I was carried as by a wave of the sea. Here I touched the floor;
the accompanying crowds dispersed through the hall, which became filled,
and as it filled some unnoticed signal ushered the glow of the electric
ether in the cylinders, until a glory of radiance mingled with the
sunlight and illuminated the audience, whose songs had died away, and
who sat in attitudes of attention, their faces upturned, their blue
caps shining resplendently, like a surface of tempered steel.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118