VOICES OF THE PAST

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 October 1928, Page 8

VOICES OF THE PAST

EDISON’S COLLECTION.

The making of personal records is an interesting development of tae phonograph, and Thomas A. Edison, the veteran inventor, posseses, enshrined on cylinders of wax, the voices of many a great one who has long been silent in death. It was a happy thought that prompted Colonel Gouraud, Edison’s friend, to niaxe a tour of the world in the early days of the phongraph, and induce the great ones of the time to make their voices and views immortal, later presenting the priceless cylinders to Edison. From them we can hear Browning and Tennyson recite their favourite poems, and the voices of Mr. Gladstone and Cardinal Manning. ' King Humbert, General Goulanger, and others speak to us in all the vigour and fulness of life. Take the cylinder labelled “Robert Browning,” and as we listen the clear, musical voice of the great poet recites the opening lines of “How They Carried the Good News from Ghent to Aik.” After a few lines, however, Mr. Browning- falters, and comes to a full stop. “I can’t remember it.” He recalls a line or two more, only to pause again. For the third time ho begins but disaster again overtakes him, and he confesses with a merry, ringing laugh that he is beaten, a confession which is greeted with laughter and cheers. ‘ How human it all is! The next cylinder is labelled “Mr. W. Gladstone,” and the occasion is a i dinner given by the editor of the Nineteenth Ceritrijy” at Queen Ann’e Lodge, St. James’s Park, London—information which the cylinder itself gives in Colonel Gouraud’s voice. It was rather a notable gathering this, for amongst Mr. Gladstone’s follow guests were Lord Playfair, Sir Morrell Mackenzie, Sir John Fowler, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Rowton. Now we heard Mr. Gladstone’s voice—the voice which charmed and moved millions — “I cheerfully comply with the request you have done me the honour to make, but I regret to say that I can only send you the remnant of an organ that has been over-strain-ed. As much of my voice as is left I will gladly give you. Wonders upon wonders are opening before us. Your great country is leading the way in

the great work of invention and to you, as one of its greatest celebrities, I send my hearty good fishes for all that pertains to the well-being of mankind. To Edison from William Ewart Gladstone.”

Next comes Lord Tennyson. Like Browning, he could not remember one of his poems sufficiently well to recite it, so ho asked permission to read his “Ode to the Death of the Duke of Wellington.” As wo listen to the opening lines —■

Bury the great Duke With the Empire’s .lamentations,” recited in the deep,resonant voice of the Laureate, we can understant much of the delight with which his privileged friends listened to him in the flesh.

It. is a great step from Tennyson to that briliant human meteor, Boulanger, but one feels that the transition is appropriately heralded by a few bars of the once popular march which bore his name. “Ah,” comes the voice of tho ‘“brave 'general,” “j’aime beaucoup Ca,” and then in the characteristic French fashion he says many pleasant flattering things about tho phonograph and its inventor. But how strange it all sounds when one recalls that supreme tragic moment when the man who might perhaps have been an emperor, sent a, bullet through his brain and fell prone on the grave of a beautiful woman who had been, the ruin of his ambitions.

Now we hear the sweet, low voice of tho great Cardidnal Manning, so different from the volatile Frenchman. Ho gives “a hearty greeting to the inventor of the - most ■ wonderful instrument of modern science,” and sign's himself orally, “Henry Edward, Cardidnal Archbishop.”