"Repulsive as it seems to us, even to read of, Ismar spent, at last, fully one-half of his existence in the ideal world he had reconstructed. This became especially the ease after his return from Olim, where he had unearthed, from the vast accumulations in its immense libraries, new sources of information on his favorite topic and special period."
"What was this period?" I inquired, though almost certain what the answer would be.
"The latter half of the nineteenth century. This had been specially studied by father and son, as being remarkable as a period of transition. Many things then lingered that were soon to pass away forever. It was a period of fermentation and incipient corruption, from which society emerged at last, so fundamentally altered in its outward form, and many of its aims and views, as to bear scarcely any resemblance to that existing but a few generations before."
I did not again interrupt the narration to inquire about the city referred to under the name of Olim. This I afterwards found to be an ancient and famous seat of learning near the centre of the Australian continent. From many causes, not necessary to enumerate, the great library of its celebrated university was especially rich in documents relating to the history of the second and third chiliads. Among other unique treasures, it possessed photographic reductions of the files of leading journals during many centuries, during all the period, in fact, when the press was at the height of its power. I have seen a complete file of "The London Times" for a year concentrated into the space of a sheet of foolscap. By
