Latest / Tales of the Long Bow / 008 - The Ultimate Ultimatum of the League of the Long Bow

Transcript

008 - The Ultimate Ultimatum of the League of the Long Bow · Tales of the Long Bow

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter eight of Tales of the Longbow. This is a
0:05
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
0:09
Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
0:15
Speaker 1: Read by Wayne Cook. Tales of the Longbow by G. K. Chesterton,
0:22
Speaker 1: Chapter eight, the ultimate ultimatum of the League of the Longbow.
0:29
Speaker 1: Mister Robert owen Hood came through his library that was
0:33
Speaker 1: lined with brown leather volumes, with a brown paper parcel
0:37
Speaker 1: in his hand. A flippant person such as his friend
0:41
Speaker 1: mister Pierce, might have said he was in a brown study.
0:45
Speaker 1: He came out into the sunlight of his garden, however,
0:48
Speaker 1: where his life was arranging tea things, for she was
0:51
Speaker 1: expecting visitors. Even in the strong daylight, he looked strangely,
0:56
Speaker 1: little altered, despite the long and catastro period that had
1:01
Speaker 1: passed since he met her in the Thames Valley and
1:04
Speaker 1: managed really to set the Thames on fire. That fire
1:09
Speaker 1: had since spread in space and time and become a
1:13
Speaker 1: conflagration in which much of modern civilization had been consumed,
1:18
Speaker 1: but in which, as its advocates alleged, English agriculture had
1:22
Speaker 1: been saved, and a new and more hopeful chapter opened
1:26
Speaker 1: in English history. His angular face was rather more lined
1:31
Speaker 1: and wrinkled, but his straight shock of copper colored hair
1:35
Speaker 1: was as unchanged as if it had been a copper
1:38
Speaker 1: colored wig. His wife, Elizabeth, was even less marked, for
1:43
Speaker 1: she was younger. She had the same slightly nervous or
1:47
Speaker 1: short sighted look in the eyes that was like a
1:50
Speaker 1: humanizing touch to her beauty made of ivory and gold.
1:56
Speaker 1: But though she was not old, she had always been
1:59
Speaker 1: a little old, old fashioned, for she came from a
2:02
Speaker 1: forgotten aristocracy, whose women had moved with a certain gravity
2:07
Speaker 1: as well as grace about the old country houses before
2:12
Speaker 1: coronets were sold like cabbages, or the Jews lent money
2:16
Speaker 1: to the squires. But her husband was old fashioned too,
2:21
Speaker 1: Though he had just taken part in a successful revolution
2:25
Speaker 1: and bore a revolutionary name, he also had his prejudices,
2:31
Speaker 1: and one of them was a weakness for his wife
2:33
Speaker 1: being a lady, especially that lady Owen, she said, looking
2:40
Speaker 1: up from the tea table with alarmed severity. You've been
2:44
Speaker 1: buying more old books, as it happens, these are particularly
2:49
Speaker 1: new books, he replied. But I suppose in one sense
2:53
Speaker 1: it is all ancient history now what ancient history, she asked.
2:58
Speaker 1: Is it a history of Babet or prehistory China? It is
3:02
Speaker 1: a history of us, I hope not, she said. But
3:07
Speaker 1: what do you mean? I mean as a history of
3:10
Speaker 1: our revolution, said o'wenhood. A true and authentic account of
3:14
Speaker 1: the late glorious victories, as the old broad cheeks said.
3:18
Speaker 1: The Great Wall of nineteen fourteen started the fashion of
3:21
Speaker 1: bringing out the history of events almost before they had happened.
3:26
Speaker 1: There were standard histories of that war while it was
3:28
Speaker 1: still going on. Our little civil wars at least finish,
3:32
Speaker 1: thank god. And this is the brand new history of it,
3:36
Speaker 1: written by a rather clever fellow, detached but understanding and
3:41
Speaker 1: a little ironical on the right side. Above all, he
3:44
Speaker 1: gives quite a good description of the Battle of the Bows.
3:49
Speaker 1: I shouldn't call that our history, said Elizabeth quietly. I
3:53
Speaker 1: am devoutly thankful that nobody can ever write our history
3:56
Speaker 1: or put it in a book. Do you remember when
3:59
Speaker 1: you jumped into the water after the flowers. I fancy
4:02
Speaker 1: it was then that you really set the Thames on
4:05
Speaker 1: fire with my red hair node out, he replied. But
4:09
Speaker 1: I don't think I really did set the Thames on fire.
4:12
Speaker 1: I think it was the Thames that set me on fire.
4:15
Speaker 1: Only you were always the spirit of the stream and
4:18
Speaker 1: the goddess of the valley. I hope I'm not quite
4:22
Speaker 1: so old as that, answered Elizabeth. Listen to this, cried
4:26
Speaker 1: her husband, turning over the pages of the book. According
4:29
Speaker 1: to the general belief which prevailed until the recent success
4:32
Speaker 1: of the agrarian movement of the Longbow, it was overwhelmingly
4:36
Speaker 1: improbable that a revolutionary change could be effected in England.
4:41
Speaker 1: The recent success of the agricultural protests do come out
4:44
Speaker 1: of that book, remonstrated his wife. One of our visitors
4:48
Speaker 1: has just arrived. The visitor proved to be the Reverend
4:51
Speaker 1: Wilding White, a man who had also played a prominent
4:55
Speaker 1: part in the recent triumph, a part that was sometimes
4:59
Speaker 1: highly publish and almost pontifical. But in private life he
5:04
Speaker 1: had always a way of entering with his gray hair
5:07
Speaker 1: brushed or blown the wrong way, and his eagle face
5:11
Speaker 1: eager or indignant. And his conversation, like his correspondence, came
5:16
Speaker 1: in a rush and was too explosive to be explanatory.
5:21
Speaker 1: I say, he cried, I've come to talk to you
5:23
Speaker 1: about that idea, you know, Enik Oates wrote about it
5:26
Speaker 1: from America, and he's a jolly good fellow and all that.
5:29
Speaker 1: But after all, he does come from America, and so
5:31
Speaker 1: he thinks it's quite easy. But you can see for
5:35
Speaker 1: yourself it isn't quite so easy, what with Turks and
5:37
Speaker 1: all that. It's all very well to talk about the
5:40
Speaker 1: United States. Never knew mind about the United States, said
5:44
Speaker 1: ut easily. I think I'm rather in favor of the heptarchy.
5:48
Speaker 1: You just listen to this, the epic of our own heptarchy,
5:51
Speaker 1: the story of our own dear little domestic war, the
5:55
Speaker 1: recent success of the agrarian protest. He was interrupted again
6:00
Speaker 1: by the arrival of two more guests, by the silent
6:04
Speaker 1: entrance of Colonel Crane, and the very noisy entrance of
6:08
Speaker 1: Captain Pierce, who had brought his young wife with him
6:11
Speaker 1: from the country, for they had established themselves in the
6:14
Speaker 1: ancestral inn of the Blue Boar. White's wife was still
6:18
Speaker 1: in the country, and Cranes, having long been busy in
6:22
Speaker 1: her studio with warp posters, was now equally busy with
6:26
Speaker 1: peace posters. Hood was one of those men whom books
6:32
Speaker 1: almost literally seize and swallow like monsters with leather or
6:38
Speaker 1: paper jaws. It was no exaggeration to say that he
6:41
Speaker 1: was deep in a book, as an incautious traveler might
6:46
Speaker 1: be deep in a swamp or some strange, maddening plant
6:49
Speaker 1: of the tropics. Only the traveler was magnetized and did
6:53
Speaker 1: not even struggle. He would fall suddenly silent in the
6:58
Speaker 1: middle of a sentence and go on reading. Or he
7:02
Speaker 1: would suddenly begin to read aloud with great passion, arguing
7:06
Speaker 1: with somebody in the book, without any reference to any
7:10
Speaker 1: one in the room. Though not normally rude, he would
7:15
Speaker 1: drift through other people's drawing rooms, towards other people's book shelves,
7:20
Speaker 1: and disappear into them, so to speak, like a rusty
7:24
Speaker 1: family ghost. He would travel a hundred miles to see
7:28
Speaker 1: a friend for an hour, and then waste half an
7:31
Speaker 1: hour with his head in some odd volume he never
7:34
Speaker 1: happened to have seen before. On all that side of
7:38
Speaker 1: him was a sort of almost creepy unconsciousness. His wife,
7:43
Speaker 1: who had old world notions of the graces of a hostess,
7:47
Speaker 1: sometimes had double work to do. The recent success of
7:52
Speaker 1: the agrarian protest began hood cheerfully as his wife rose
7:56
Speaker 1: swiftly to receive two more visitors. These were Professor Greene
8:01
Speaker 1: and Commander Billeu Blair. For a Queer friendship had long
8:06
Speaker 1: linked together the most practical and the most unpractical of
8:11
Speaker 1: the brothers of the Long Bowl. The friendship, as Pierce remarked,
8:15
Speaker 1: was firmly rooted in the square root of minus infinity.
8:20
Speaker 1: How beautiful your garden is looking, said Blair to his hostess.
8:24
Speaker 1: One so seldom sees flower beds like that now, But
8:28
Speaker 1: I shall always think the old gardeners were right. Most
8:32
Speaker 1: things are old fashioned here, I'm afraid, replied Elizabeth, But
8:36
Speaker 1: I always liked them like that. And how are the children?
8:40
Speaker 1: The recent success of the agrarian protest, remarked her husband
8:44
Speaker 1: in a clear voice, is doubtless, really, she said, laughing,
8:49
Speaker 1: you are too ridiculous for anything. Why in the world
8:52
Speaker 1: should you want to read out the history of the
8:55
Speaker 1: war to the people who were in it and quite
8:59
Speaker 1: know already what really happened. I beg your pardon, said
9:02
Speaker 1: Colonel Crane. Very improper to contradict a lady, But indeed
9:06
Speaker 1: you are mistaken. The very last thing the soldier generally
9:10
Speaker 1: knows is what has really happened. Has to look at
9:13
Speaker 1: a newspaper next morning for the realistic description of what
9:17
Speaker 1: never happened. Why then, you'd better go on reading Hood,
9:20
Speaker 1: said Hilary Pearce. The colonel wants to know whether he
9:23
Speaker 1: was killed in battle, or whether there was any truth
9:27
Speaker 1: to the story that he was hanged as a spy
9:29
Speaker 1: on the very tree it climbed when running away as
9:31
Speaker 1: a deserter. Should rather like to know what they make
9:35
Speaker 1: of it all, said the colonel. After all, we were
9:38
Speaker 1: all too deep in it to see it. I mean,
9:41
Speaker 1: see it as a whole. If Owen once begins, he
9:45
Speaker 1: won't stop for hours, said the lady. Perhaps began Blair,
9:50
Speaker 1: we had better The recent success of the agrarian protest,
9:54
Speaker 1: remarked Hood, in an authoritative voice, is doubtless to be
9:57
Speaker 1: attributed largely to the economic advantag age belonging to an
10:01
Speaker 1: agrarian population. It can feed the town or refuse to
10:05
Speaker 1: feed the town. And this question appeared early in the
10:08
Speaker 1: politics of the peasantry that had arisen in the Western counties.
10:13
Speaker 1: Nobody will forget the scene at Paddington's Station in the
10:16
Speaker 1: first days of the rebellion, Men who had grown used
10:19
Speaker 1: to seeing on innumerable mornings the innumerable ranks and rows
10:23
Speaker 1: of great milk cans, looking leaden in a gray and
10:27
Speaker 1: greasy light, found themselves faced with a blank in which
10:31
Speaker 1: those neglected things shone in the memory like stolen silver.
10:35
Speaker 1: It was true, as Sir Horace Hunter eagerly pointed out
10:39
Speaker 1: when he was put in command of the highly hygienetic
10:42
Speaker 1: problem of the milk supply, that there would be no
10:45
Speaker 1: difficulty about manufacturing the metal cans, perhaps even of an
10:49
Speaker 1: improved pattern, with the rapidity and finish of which the
10:52
Speaker 1: rustics of Somerset would be incapable. He had long been
10:56
Speaker 1: of opinion. The learned doctor explained that the shape of
10:59
Speaker 1: the case, especially the small cans left outside poor houses,
11:03
Speaker 1: left much to be desired, and the whole process of
11:06
Speaker 1: standing these small objects about in the basements of private
11:10
Speaker 1: houses was open to grave objection in the matter of
11:14
Speaker 1: waste of space. The public, however, showed an indifference to
11:18
Speaker 1: this new issue, and a disposition to go back to
11:21
Speaker 1: the old demand for milk, in which matter they said,
11:25
Speaker 1: there was an unfair advantage for the man who possessed
11:28
Speaker 1: a cow over the man who only possessed a can.
11:31
Speaker 1: But the story that Hunter had rivaled the agrarian slogan
11:34
Speaker 1: by proclaiming the policy of three areas and a can
11:39
Speaker 1: was in all probability a flippant invention of his enemies.
11:43
Speaker 1: These agrarian strikes had already occurred at intervals before they
11:47
Speaker 1: culminated in the Agrarian War. They were the result of
11:50
Speaker 1: an attempt to enforce on the farmers certain general regulations
11:54
Speaker 1: and precautions about their daily habit, dress and diet, which
11:59
Speaker 1: Sir Hunter Horyrus and Professor Haik had found to be
12:02
Speaker 1: of great advantage in the large state laboratories for the
12:06
Speaker 1: manufacture of poisons and destructive gases. There was every reason
12:10
Speaker 1: to believe that the people, especially the young people of
12:14
Speaker 1: the village, often evaded the regulation about the good of
12:17
Speaker 1: perchamasques and the rule requiring the worker to paint himself
12:21
Speaker 1: all over with an aniseptic gum. And the sending of
12:25
Speaker 1: inspectors from London to see that these rules were in
12:28
Speaker 1: force led to lamentable sins of violence. It would be
12:32
Speaker 1: an error, however, to attribute the whole of this great
12:35
Speaker 1: social convulsion to any local agricultural dispute. The cause must
12:40
Speaker 1: also be sought in the general state of society, especially
12:44
Speaker 1: political society. The Earl of Eden was the statesman of
12:48
Speaker 1: great skill by the old parliamentary standards, but he was
12:51
Speaker 1: already old when he launched his final defiance to the
12:55
Speaker 1: peasants in the form of land nationalization, and the general
12:59
Speaker 1: election which was the result of this departure fell largely
13:03
Speaker 1: into the hands of his lieutenants like Hunter and Lowe.
13:06
Speaker 1: It soon became apparent that sum of the illusions of
13:09
Speaker 1: the Enoch epoch had worn rather thin. It was found
13:13
Speaker 1: that the democracy could not always be intimidated even by
13:17
Speaker 1: the threat of consulting them about the choice of a government.
13:20
Speaker 1: Nor can it be denied that the general election of
13:23
Speaker 1: nineteen blanc was from the first rendered somewhat unreal by
13:27
Speaker 1: certain legal functions which had long been spreading. There was
13:31
Speaker 1: a custom, originating in the harmless and humane deception used
13:35
Speaker 1: upon some excited maiden ladies from the provinces, by which
13:39
Speaker 1: the private secretaries of the Prime Minister would present themselves
13:43
Speaker 1: as that politician himself, sometimes completing that innocent illusion by
13:48
Speaker 1: brushing their hair, waxing their mustaches, or wearing their eye
13:52
Speaker 1: glasses in the manner of their master. When this custom
13:56
Speaker 1: was extended to public platforms, it cannot be denied to
13:59
Speaker 1: be became more questionable. In the last days of that
14:03
Speaker 1: venerable statesman. It has been asserted that there were no
14:06
Speaker 1: less than five Lord Georges touring the country at the
14:09
Speaker 1: same time, and that the contemporary Chancellor of the Exchequer
14:13
Speaker 1: had appeared simultaneously in three cities on the same night,
14:18
Speaker 1: while the original of all these replicas, the popular and
14:21
Speaker 1: brilliant Chancellor himself, was enjoying a well earned rest by
14:24
Speaker 1: the Lake of Como. The incident of two identical Lord
14:29
Speaker 1: Smiths appearing side by side on the same platform through
14:33
Speaker 1: a miscalculation of the party agents, though received with good
14:38
Speaker 1: humor and honest merriment by the audience, did but little
14:42
Speaker 1: good to the serious credit of parliamentary institutions. There was,
14:46
Speaker 1: of course, a certain exaggeration in the suggestion of the
14:50
Speaker 1: satirist that a whole column of identical prime ministers walking
14:54
Speaker 1: two and two like soldiers, marched out of Downing Street
14:57
Speaker 1: every morning and distributed themselves wells to their various posts
15:01
Speaker 1: like policemen. But such satires were popular and widely scattered,
15:07
Speaker 1: especially by an active young gentleman, who was the author
15:10
Speaker 1: of most of them. Captain Hillary Pierce, late of the
15:13
Speaker 1: Flying Corps. But if this was true of such trifles
15:17
Speaker 1: as half a dozen of prime ministers, it was even
15:21
Speaker 1: truer and more trying in the practical matter of party
15:25
Speaker 1: programs and proposals. The heading of each party program with
15:29
Speaker 1: the old promise every man a millionaire had, of course
15:34
Speaker 1: become merely formal, like a decorative pattern or border. But
15:37
Speaker 1: it cannot be denied that the universal use of this phrase,
15:41
Speaker 1: combined with the equally universal sense of the unfairness of
15:45
Speaker 1: expecting any politician to carry it out, somewhat weakened the
15:49
Speaker 1: force of words in political affairs. It would have been
15:52
Speaker 1: well if statesmen had confined themselves to these accepted and
15:56
Speaker 1: familiar formalities. Unfortunately, under the stress of the struggle which
16:00
Speaker 1: arose out of the menacing organization of the League of
16:04
Speaker 1: the Longbow, they sought to dazzle their followers with the
16:07
Speaker 1: new improbabilities, instead of adhering to the tried and trusty
16:12
Speaker 1: improbabilities that had done them yeoman service in the past.
16:16
Speaker 1: Thus it was unwise of Lord Norman Towers so far
16:19
Speaker 1: to depart from the temperance principles of a lifetime as
16:23
Speaker 1: to promise all his workers a bottle of champagne each
16:27
Speaker 1: at every meal if they would consent to complete the
16:30
Speaker 1: provision of munitions for suppressing the Longbow rebellion. The great
16:35
Speaker 1: philanthropists unquestionably had the highest intentions, both in his rash
16:39
Speaker 1: promise and his more reasonable fulfillment. But when the munition's
16:43
Speaker 1: worker found that the champagne bottles, though carefully covered with
16:47
Speaker 1: the most beautiful gold foil, contained in fact nothing but
16:51
Speaker 1: hygenically boiled water. The result was a sudden and sensational
16:55
Speaker 1: strike which paralyzed the whole output of munitions and led
16:59
Speaker 1: to the first incredible victories of the League of the
17:02
Speaker 1: long Boat. There followed, in consequence, one of the most
17:06
Speaker 1: amazing bars of human history, a one sided war one
17:11
Speaker 1: side would have been insignificant if the other side had
17:15
Speaker 1: not been impotent. The minority could not have fought for long,
17:19
Speaker 1: only the majority could not fight at all. There prevailed
17:24
Speaker 1: to the whole in the existing organization of society a
17:27
Speaker 1: universal distrust that turned them into a dust of disconnected atoms.
17:33
Speaker 1: What was the use of offering men higher pay when
17:36
Speaker 1: they did not believe they would ever receive it? But
17:39
Speaker 1: only alluded jeeringby to Lord Norman Tower and his brand
17:43
Speaker 1: of Champagne. What was the use of telling every man
17:47
Speaker 1: that he would have a bonus when you had told
17:49
Speaker 1: him for twenty years that he would soon be a millionaire.
17:53
Speaker 1: What was the good of the Prime Minister pledging his
17:56
Speaker 1: honor in a ringing voice on platform after platform when
18:00
Speaker 1: it was already an open jest that it was not
18:03
Speaker 1: the prime minister at all. The government devowe to taxes
18:07
Speaker 1: and they were not paid. It mobilized armies in the
18:10
Speaker 1: you did not move. It introduced the pattern of a
18:14
Speaker 1: new all pulverising gun, and nobody would make it and
18:17
Speaker 1: nobody would fire it off. Well remember the Romantic Crisis,
18:22
Speaker 1: where no less a genius than Professor Hayke came to
18:26
Speaker 1: Sir Horace Hunter, the Minister of Scientific Social Organization, with
18:31
Speaker 1: a new explosive capable of shattering the whole geological formation
18:35
Speaker 1: of Europe and seeking these islands in the Atlantic, but
18:39
Speaker 1: was unable to induce the cabman or any of the
18:42
Speaker 1: clerks to assist him in lifting it out of the cab.
18:46
Speaker 1: Against all this anarchy of broken promises, the little organization
18:50
Speaker 1: of the long Bows stood solid and loyal and dependable,
18:55
Speaker 1: the long Bowmen had become popular by the nickname of
18:57
Speaker 1: the Liars. Everywhere the jester ketchword was repeated like a song.
19:03
Speaker 1: Only the liars tell the truth. They found more and
19:07
Speaker 1: more men to work and fight for them because it
19:10
Speaker 1: was knowing that they would pay whatever wages they promised,
19:13
Speaker 1: and refused to promise anything they could not perform. The
19:17
Speaker 1: nickname became an ironical symbol of idealism and dignity. A
19:22
Speaker 1: man was proud of being a little precise and even
19:25
Speaker 1: pedantic in his accuracy and probity because he was a liar.
19:31
Speaker 1: The whole of this strange organization had originated in certain
19:35
Speaker 1: wild bets or foolish practical jokes indulged in by a
19:39
Speaker 1: small group of eccentrics. But they had prided themselves on
19:44
Speaker 1: the logical, if rather literal, fashion in which they had
19:47
Speaker 1: fulfilled certain vows about white elephants or flying pigs. Hence,
19:53
Speaker 1: when they came to stand for a policy of peasant
19:56
Speaker 1: proprietorship and were enabled by the money of an American
19:59
Speaker 1: crit to establish it in a widespread fashion across the
20:03
Speaker 1: west of England, they took the more serious task with
20:07
Speaker 1: the same tenacity. When their foes mocked them with the
20:11
Speaker 1: myth of three acres in a cowl. They answered, yes,
20:15
Speaker 1: it is as mythical as the cow that jumped over
20:17
Speaker 1: the moon. But our myths come true. The inexplicable and
20:22
Speaker 1: indeed incredible conclusion of the story was due to a
20:26
Speaker 1: new fact, the fact of the actual presence of the
20:29
Speaker 1: new peasantry. They had first come into complete possession of
20:32
Speaker 1: their farms by the deed of gift signed by Enikoakes
20:37
Speaker 1: in the February of nineteen blank, and had thus been
20:40
Speaker 1: settled in the land for ten or twelve years. When
20:43
Speaker 1: Lord Eden and his cabinet finally committed themselves to the
20:47
Speaker 1: scheme of land nationalization, by which their homesteads were to
20:51
Speaker 1: pass into official control. That curious and inexplicable thing, the
20:57
Speaker 1: spirit of the peasant, had made great strong rides in
21:00
Speaker 1: the interval. It was found that the government could not
21:03
Speaker 1: move such people about from place to place, as it
21:06
Speaker 1: is possible to do with the urban poor in the
21:08
Speaker 1: reconstruction of streets or the destruction of slums. It was
21:13
Speaker 1: not a thing like moving ponds, but a thing like
21:16
Speaker 1: pulling up plants, and plants which had already struck their roots.
21:20
Speaker 1: Very deep. In short, the government, which had adopted a
21:24
Speaker 1: policy commonly called socialist from motives which were in fact
21:28
Speaker 1: very conservative, found themselves confronted with the same peasant resistance
21:33
Speaker 1: as brought the Bolshevik government in Russia to a standstill.
21:37
Speaker 1: And when Lord Eden and his cabinet put in motion
21:40
Speaker 1: in the whole modern machinery of materialism and coercion to
21:44
Speaker 1: crush the little experiment, he found himselves confronted with a
21:48
Speaker 1: rural rising such as had not been known in England
21:51
Speaker 1: since the Middle Ages. It is said that the men
21:54
Speaker 1: of the Longbow carried their medieval symbolism so far as
21:58
Speaker 1: to where link and green as their uniform when they
22:01
Speaker 1: retired to the woods in the manner of robin hood.
22:04
Speaker 1: It is certain that they did employ the weapon after
22:07
Speaker 1: which they were named, and curiously enough, as will be
22:11
Speaker 1: seen by no means without effect. But it must be
22:15
Speaker 1: clearly understood that when the new agrarian class took to
22:19
Speaker 1: the woods like outlaws, they did not feel in the
22:22
Speaker 1: least like robbers. They hardly even felt like rebels. From
22:26
Speaker 1: their point of view. At least they were, and had
22:29
Speaker 1: long been, the lawful owners of their own fields, and
22:33
Speaker 1: officials who came to confiscate were the robbers. Therefore, when
22:38
Speaker 1: Lord Eden proclaimed nationalization, they turned out in thousands, as
22:42
Speaker 1: their fathers would have gone out against pirates or wolves.
22:46
Speaker 1: The government acted with great promptitude. It instantly voted fifty
22:51
Speaker 1: thousand pounds to mister Rosenbaum Low, the expenditure of which
22:55
Speaker 1: was widely left at his discretion at so acute a crisis,
23:00
Speaker 1: with no more than the understanding that he should take
23:02
Speaker 1: a thorough general survey of the situation. He proved worthy
23:07
Speaker 1: of the trust, and it was with the gravest consideration
23:10
Speaker 1: and sense of responsibility that he selected mister Leonard Crump,
23:15
Speaker 1: the brilliant young financier, from all his other nephews, to
23:19
Speaker 1: take command of the forces in the field. In the field, however,
23:24
Speaker 1: fortune is well known to be somewhat more incalculable, and
23:28
Speaker 1: all the intelligence and presence of mind that enabled Crump
23:32
Speaker 1: to postpone the rush on the Potosi Bank were not
23:35
Speaker 1: sufficient to balance the accidental possession by Crane and Pierce
23:39
Speaker 1: of an elementary knowledge of strategy. Before considering the successes
23:44
Speaker 1: obtained by these commanders in the rather rude fashion of
23:47
Speaker 1: warfare which they were forced to adopt. It must be noted,
23:51
Speaker 1: of course, that even on their side there were also
23:54
Speaker 1: scientific resources of a kind, an effective, if eccentric kind.
24:00
Speaker 1: Scientific genius of Bello. Blair had equipped his side with
24:03
Speaker 1: many secret processes affecting aviation and aeronautics. And it is
24:08
Speaker 1: the peculiarity of this extraordinary man that his secret process
24:12
Speaker 1: has really remained for a considerable time secret, for he
24:16
Speaker 1: had not told them to anybody with any intention of
24:19
Speaker 1: making any money out of them. This quixotic and visionary
24:22
Speaker 1: behavior contrasted sharply with a shrewd good sense of the
24:26
Speaker 1: great businessmen, who knew that publicity is a soul of business.
24:31
Speaker 1: For some time past, they had successfully ignored the outworned
24:35
Speaker 1: sentimental prejudice that had prevented soldiers and sailors from advertising
24:40
Speaker 1: the best methods of defeating the enemy. And we can
24:43
Speaker 1: all recall those brilliantly colored announcements which used to brighten
24:48
Speaker 1: so many hoardings in those days. Sink In Smith's submarine
24:53
Speaker 1: Pleasure Trips for Patriots, or Duffan's portable Dugout makes War.
25:00
Speaker 1: A luxury advertisement cannot fail to effect its aim. The
25:05
Speaker 1: name of an aeroplane that had been written in the
25:07
Speaker 1: sky in pink and pea green lights could not but
25:11
Speaker 1: become a symbol of the conquest of the air, and
25:14
Speaker 1: the patriotic statesmen, deeply considering what sort of battleship might
25:18
Speaker 1: best defend his country's coast, was insensibly and subtly influenced
25:23
Speaker 1: by the number of times that he had seen its
25:26
Speaker 1: name repeated on the steps of a moving staircase at
25:29
Speaker 1: an imperial exhibition. Nor could there be any doubt about
25:34
Speaker 1: the brilliant success that attended those scientific specialties, so long
25:39
Speaker 1: as their operations were confined to the market. The methods
25:42
Speaker 1: of Commander Blair were, in comparison private, local, obscure and
25:47
Speaker 1: lacking any general recognition, And by a strange irony, it
25:52
Speaker 1: was a positive advantage to this nameless and secretive crank
25:56
Speaker 1: that he had never advertised his weapons until he used them.
26:01
Speaker 1: He had paraded a number of merely fanciful balloons and
26:04
Speaker 1: fireworks for a jest, But the secrets to which he
26:07
Speaker 1: attached importance he had hidden in cracks of the Welsh
26:10
Speaker 1: mountains with a curious and callous indifference to the principles
26:14
Speaker 1: of commercial distribution and display. He could not in any
26:17
Speaker 1: case have conducted operations on a large scale, being deficient
26:21
Speaker 1: in that capital, the lack of which has so often
26:24
Speaker 1: been fatal to inventors, and had made it useless for
26:28
Speaker 1: man to discover a machine unless he could also discover
26:31
Speaker 1: a millionaire. But it cannot be denied that when his
26:36
Speaker 1: machine was brought into operation, it was always operative, even
26:40
Speaker 1: to the point of killing the millionaire, who might have
26:43
Speaker 1: financed for the millionnaire has so persistently cultivated the virtues
26:48
Speaker 1: of self advertisement that it was difficult for him to
26:51
Speaker 1: become suddenly unknown and undistinguished, even in scenes of conflict
26:57
Speaker 1: where he most ardently desired to do so. There was
27:01
Speaker 1: a movement on foot for treating all millionaires as noncombatants,
27:05
Speaker 1: as being treasures belonging alike to all nations, like the
27:09
Speaker 1: cathedrals or the Parthenon. It is said that there was
27:12
Speaker 1: even an alternative scheme for camouflaging the millionaire by the
27:16
Speaker 1: pictorial methods that it can disguise a gun as a
27:19
Speaker 1: part of the landscape, and that Captain Pierce devoted much
27:23
Speaker 1: eloquence to persuading mister Rosenbaum Lowe how much better it
27:28
Speaker 1: would be for all parties if his face could be
27:31
Speaker 1: made to melt away and to the middle distance, or
27:34
Speaker 1: take on the appearance of a black wall or a
27:36
Speaker 1: wooden post. The extraordinary thing is interrupted Piers, who had
27:41
Speaker 1: been listening eagerly, that she said I was personal, just
27:45
Speaker 1: at the moment when I was trying to make him
27:47
Speaker 1: most impersonal, when I was trying to wave away all
27:50
Speaker 1: personal features that could come between us, he actually said
27:54
Speaker 1: I was personal. Hood went on reading as if nobody
27:58
Speaker 1: had spoken in truth. The success of Blair's instruments revealed
28:03
Speaker 1: a fallacy in the common commercial argument. We talk of
28:06
Speaker 1: a competition between two kinds of soap, or two kinds
28:10
Speaker 1: of jam or coco. But it is a competition in
28:12
Speaker 1: purchase and not in practice. We do not make two
28:16
Speaker 1: men eat two kinds of jam and then observe which
28:19
Speaker 1: wears the most radiant smile of satisfaction. We do not
28:23
Speaker 1: give two men two kinds of coco and note which
28:26
Speaker 1: endures it with the most resignation. But we do use
28:30
Speaker 1: two guns directly against each other. And in the case
28:33
Speaker 1: of Blair's methods, the less advertised gun was the better. Nevertheless,
28:38
Speaker 1: his scientific genius could only cover a corner of the field,
28:42
Speaker 1: and a great part of the war must be considered
28:45
Speaker 1: as a war in the open country of a much
28:47
Speaker 1: more primitive than sometimes almost prehistoric kind. It is admitted,
28:53
Speaker 1: of course, by all students, that the victories of Crane
28:56
Speaker 1: and Pears were gross violations of strategic science. The victors
29:01
Speaker 1: themselves afterwards handsomely acknowledged the fact, but it was then
29:05
Speaker 1: too late to repair the error. In order to understand it, however,
29:10
Speaker 1: it is necessary to grasp the curious condition into which
29:13
Speaker 1: so many elements of social life had sunk in the
29:16
Speaker 1: time just preceding the outbreak. It was this strange social
29:20
Speaker 1: situation which rendered the campaign a contradiction to so many
29:25
Speaker 1: sound military maxims. For instance, it is a recognized military
29:30
Speaker 1: maxim that armies depend upon roads. But any one who
29:34
Speaker 1: had noticed the conditions that are already beginning to appear
29:37
Speaker 1: in London streets as early as nineteen twenty four will
29:41
Speaker 1: understand that a road was something less simple and static
29:45
Speaker 1: than the Romans imagined. The government had adopted everywhere in
29:49
Speaker 1: their road, making the well known material familiar to us
29:53
Speaker 1: solve from the advertisements by the name of Nubumpo, thereby
29:58
Speaker 1: both ensuring the comfort of travelers and rewarding a faithful
30:02
Speaker 1: supporter by placing a large order with mister hug As.
30:06
Speaker 1: Several members of the government themselves held shairs in Nobumpo.
30:11
Speaker 1: Their enthusiastic cooperation in the public work was assured, but
30:15
Speaker 1: has no doubt been observed everywhere. It is one of
30:19
Speaker 1: the many advantages of Nobumpo as preserving that freshness of
30:24
Speaker 1: surface so agreeable to the pedestrian, that all material can
30:28
Speaker 1: be and is taken up and renewed every three months
30:31
Speaker 1: for the comfort of travelers and the profit and encouragement
30:35
Speaker 1: of trade. It so happened that at the precise moment
30:39
Speaker 1: of the outbreak of hostilities, all the country roads, especially
30:43
Speaker 1: in the west, were as completely out of use as
30:46
Speaker 1: if they had been the main thoroughfares of London. This
30:50
Speaker 1: in itself tended to equalize the chances, or even to
30:54
Speaker 1: increase them, in favor of a guerrilla force such as
30:57
Speaker 1: that which had disappeared into the woods and was everywhere
31:01
Speaker 1: moving under the cover of the trees. Under modern conditions,
31:05
Speaker 1: it was found that by carefully avoiding roads it was
31:08
Speaker 1: still more or less possible to move from place to
31:11
Speaker 1: place again. Another that recognized military effect is the fact
31:16
Speaker 1: that the boat is an obsolete weapon, And nothing is
31:20
Speaker 1: more irritating to a finely balanced taste than to be
31:23
Speaker 1: killed with an obsolete weapon, especially while persistently pulling the
31:28
Speaker 1: trigger of an efficient weapon without any apparent effect. Such
31:33
Speaker 1: was the fate of the few unfortunate regiments which ventured
31:36
Speaker 1: to advance into the forests and fell under showers of
31:40
Speaker 1: arrows from trackless ambushes. For it must be remembered that
31:44
Speaker 1: the conditions of this extraordinary campaign entirely reversed the normal
31:49
Speaker 1: military rule about the essential military department of supply. Mechanical
31:55
Speaker 1: communications theoretically accelerate supply, while the sub supply of a
32:00
Speaker 1: force cut loose and living on the country is soon exhausted.
32:05
Speaker 1: But the mechanical factor also depends upon a moral factor.
32:09
Speaker 1: A munition would, on normal occasions have been produced with
32:13
Speaker 1: unequal rapidity by Pool's process and brought up with unrivaled
32:18
Speaker 1: speed in Blinker's cars, but not at the moment when
32:22
Speaker 1: riotous employees were engaged in dipping Pool repeatedly in a
32:26
Speaker 1: large vat at the factory, or in the quieter conditions
32:29
Speaker 1: of the countryside where various tramps were acquiring squatter's rights
32:34
Speaker 1: in Blinker's cars accidentally delayed upon their journey. Everywhere, the
32:40
Speaker 1: same thing happened. Just as the great manufacturer failed to
32:44
Speaker 1: keep his promise to the workers who produced munitions, so
32:48
Speaker 1: the petty officials driving the lorries had failed to keep
32:51
Speaker 1: their promise to loafers and vagrants who had helped them
32:55
Speaker 1: out of temporary difficulties, and the whole system of supply
32:59
Speaker 1: broke down upon a broken word. On the other hand,
33:03
Speaker 1: the supply of the outlaws was in a sense almost infinite.
33:07
Speaker 1: With the woodcutters and the blacksmiths on their side, they
33:10
Speaker 1: could produce their own rude medieval weapons everywhere. It was
33:14
Speaker 1: in Vain that Professor Haik delivered a series of popular
33:18
Speaker 1: lectures proving to the lower classes that in the long
33:22
Speaker 1: run it would be to their economic advantage to be
33:25
Speaker 1: killed in battle. Captain Pierce is reported to have said,
33:29
Speaker 1: I believe the professor is a botanist as well as
33:32
Speaker 1: an economist. But as a botanist he is not yet
33:36
Speaker 1: discovered that guns do not grow on trees, bows and
33:39
Speaker 1: arrows do. But the incident which history will have most
33:45
Speaker 1: difficulty in explaining, and which it may perhaps refer to
33:49
Speaker 1: the region of myth the romance, is the crowning victory
33:52
Speaker 1: called the Battle of the Bows. It was indeed originally
33:56
Speaker 1: called the Battle of the Bows of God, in reference
33:59
Speaker 1: to some strangely fantastic boast equally strangely fulfilled that is
34:05
Speaker 1: said to have been uttered by the celebrated Parson White,
34:09
Speaker 1: a sort of popular chaplain who seems to have been
34:12
Speaker 1: the friar tuck of this new band of robin hood.
34:16
Speaker 1: Coming in a sort of embassy to Sir Horace Hunter,
34:19
Speaker 1: this clergyman is said to have threatened the government with
34:22
Speaker 1: something like a miracle. When rallied about their chaic sport
34:26
Speaker 1: of the long bow, he replied, yes, we have long bows,
34:30
Speaker 1: and we shall have longer bows. The long disposed. The
34:34
Speaker 1: world has ever seen bows taller than houses, bows given
34:38
Speaker 1: to us by God himself, and big enough for his
34:42
Speaker 1: gigantic angels. The whole business of this battle, historic and
34:47
Speaker 1: deciphers as it was, is covered with some obscurity, like
34:52
Speaker 1: that cloud of storm that hung heavy upon the daybreak
34:55
Speaker 1: of that gloomy November day. Had any one had been
34:58
Speaker 1: present with the government forces who was well acquainted with
35:02
Speaker 1: the western valley in which they were operating, such a
35:05
Speaker 1: person could not have failed to notice that the very
35:08
Speaker 1: landscape looked different, looked new and abnormal. Dimly as it
35:13
Speaker 1: could be traced through the morning twilight, the very line
35:17
Speaker 1: of the woodland against the sky would have shown him
35:20
Speaker 1: a new shape, a deformity like a hump. But the
35:24
Speaker 1: plans had all been laid out in London long before.
35:27
Speaker 1: An imitation of that force, sight, fixity, of purpose, and
35:31
Speaker 1: final success will always be associated with the last German Emperor.
35:36
Speaker 1: It was enough for them that there was a wood
35:39
Speaker 1: of some sort marked on the map, and they advanced
35:42
Speaker 1: towards it, low and crouching, as its entrance appeared to be.
35:48
Speaker 1: Then something happened which even those who sought and survived
35:52
Speaker 1: cannot describe. The dark trees seemed to spring up to
35:55
Speaker 1: twice their height, as in a nightmare. In the half dark.
35:59
Speaker 1: The whole seemed to rise from the earth like a
36:02
Speaker 1: rush of birds, and then to turn over in mid
36:05
Speaker 1: air and come towards the invaders like a roaring wave.
36:09
Speaker 1: Some such dim and dizzy sight they saw, but many
36:13
Speaker 1: of them at least saw little enough. Afterwards, Simultaneously with
36:17
Speaker 1: the turning of this wheel of waving trees, rocks seemed
36:21
Speaker 1: to rain down out of heaven beams and stones, and
36:25
Speaker 1: chefs and missiles of all kinds, flattening out the advancing
36:28
Speaker 1: forces as under a pavement produced by shower of paving stones.
36:33
Speaker 1: It is asserted that some of the countrymen, cunning and
36:36
Speaker 1: woodcraft in the surface of the Long Bowl had contrived
36:39
Speaker 1: to fit up a tree as a colossal catapult, calculating
36:43
Speaker 1: how to band back the boughs and sometimes even the trunks,
36:46
Speaker 1: to the breaking point, and gaining a huge and living
36:50
Speaker 1: resilience with their release. If this story is true, it
36:55
Speaker 1: is certainly an appropriate conclusion to the career of the
36:57
Speaker 1: long Bow, and a rather curious fight filment of the
37:01
Speaker 1: visionary vant of Parson White when he said that the
37:03
Speaker 1: beaus would be big enough for giants, and that the
37:06
Speaker 1: maker of the bows was God. Yes, interrupted the exciteable White,
37:12
Speaker 1: And do you know what he said to me when
37:13
Speaker 1: I first said it? What who said? When you said what?
37:17
Speaker 1: Asked Hood impatiently, I mean that, fellow Hunter, replied the
37:21
Speaker 1: clergyman and varnished society doctor turned politician. Do you know
37:24
Speaker 1: what he said when I told him we would get
37:26
Speaker 1: our beaus from God? Owen Hood paused in the act
37:30
Speaker 1: of lighting a cigar. Yes, he said griply. I believe
37:34
Speaker 1: I can tell you exactly what he said. I watched
37:37
Speaker 1: him off and on for twenty years. I bet he
37:39
Speaker 1: began by saying, I don't profess to be a religious man. Right,
37:43
Speaker 1: quite right, cried the cleric, bounding up his chair in
37:47
Speaker 1: a joyous manner. That's exactly how he began. I don't
37:50
Speaker 1: profess to be a religious man, but I trust I
37:52
Speaker 1: have some reverence and good taste. I don't drag religion
37:56
Speaker 1: into politics. And I said, no, I don't think you do.
38:01
Speaker 1: A moment after, he bounded, as it were, in a
38:04
Speaker 1: new direction. And that reminds me of what I came about.
38:07
Speaker 1: He cried in a coots. Your American friend drags religion
38:11
Speaker 1: into politics, all right, only it's a rather American sort
38:14
Speaker 1: of religion. He's talking about a United States of Europe
38:17
Speaker 1: and wants to introduce you to a Lithuanian prophet. It
38:20
Speaker 1: seems that Lithuanian Party has started a movement for universal
38:24
Speaker 1: present Republic or a world state of workers on the land.
38:27
Speaker 1: But at present it's only got as far as Lithuania.
38:30
Speaker 1: But he seems inclined to pick up England on the way.
38:33
Speaker 1: After the unexpected success of the English Agrarian Party. What's
38:37
Speaker 1: the good of talking to me about a world state?
38:40
Speaker 1: Grownd Hell, didn't I say I preferred a heptarchy? Don't
38:44
Speaker 1: you understand? Interrupted Hillary Pierce excitedly. What can we have
38:48
Speaker 1: to do with international republics? We can turn England upside
38:52
Speaker 1: down if we like, But it's England that we like,
38:55
Speaker 1: whichever way up white. Our very names and phrases, the
38:59
Speaker 1: very bets and jokes in which the whole thing began,
39:02
Speaker 1: will never be translated. It takes an Englishman to eat
39:05
Speaker 1: his hat. I never heard of a Spaniard threatening to
39:08
Speaker 1: eat his sombrero, or a Chinaman to chew his pigtail.
39:12
Speaker 1: You can only set the Thames on fire. You cannot
39:15
Speaker 1: set the Tiber or the Ganges on fire because the
39:18
Speaker 1: habit of speech has never been heard of. What's the
39:21
Speaker 1: good of talking about white elephants in countries? Why they
39:24
Speaker 1: are only quite elephants. Go and say to a Frenchman
39:28
Speaker 1: poon mon cherteaut ze letoon in le font Brand, and
39:33
Speaker 1: he will send two Parisian alienists to look at you seriously,
39:38
Speaker 1: like a man who says his motor car is a
39:40
Speaker 1: greeden giraffe. There's no point in telling Czechoslovakian pigs to
39:44
Speaker 1: fly or Yugoslavonic cows to jump over the moon. Why
39:48
Speaker 1: the unhappy Lithuanian would be bewildered to the point of
39:51
Speaker 1: madness by our very name. There's no reason to suppose
39:55
Speaker 1: that he and his countrymen talk about a long bowman
39:58
Speaker 1: when they mean a liar. We talk about tall stories,
40:02
Speaker 1: but a tall story may mean a true story. In
40:05
Speaker 1: colloquial Lithuanian. Tall stories are true stories sometimes, I hope,
40:11
Speaker 1: said Colonel Crane. And people don't believe them. But people
40:15
Speaker 1: say that was a very tall story about the tall
40:18
Speaker 1: trees throwing darts and stones. Afraid it'll come to be
40:21
Speaker 1: a bit of a joke. All our battles began as jokes,
40:25
Speaker 1: and they will end as jokes, said owen Hood, staring
40:29
Speaker 1: at the smoke of cigars that threaded its way towards
40:32
Speaker 1: the sky and gray and silver Arabesque. They will linger
40:36
Speaker 1: only as faintly laughable legends. If they linger at all,
40:40
Speaker 1: they may pass an idle hour, fill an empty page,
40:43
Speaker 1: and even the man who tells them will not take
40:46
Speaker 1: them seriously. It will all end in smoke, like the smoke.
40:50
Speaker 1: I am looking at its eddying and topsy Turvin patterns,
40:54
Speaker 1: hovering for a moment in the air, and I wonder
40:57
Speaker 1: how many who may smile or young over them, would
41:01
Speaker 1: realize that where there was smoke, there was fire. There
41:07
Speaker 1: was a silence. Then Colonel Crane stood up, a solitary
41:12
Speaker 1: figure in his severe and former clothes, and gravely said
41:16
Speaker 1: farewell to his hostess with a failing afternoon light. He
41:20
Speaker 1: knew that his own wife, who was a well known artist,
41:24
Speaker 1: would be abandoning her studio work, and he always looked
41:28
Speaker 1: forward to a talk with her before dinner, which was
41:30
Speaker 1: often a more social function. Nevertheless, as he approached his
41:34
Speaker 1: old home, a whim induced him to delay the meeting
41:37
Speaker 1: for a few minutes and to walk around to his
41:40
Speaker 1: old kitchen garden, where his old servant archer was still
41:44
Speaker 1: leaning on a spade, as in the days before the flood.
41:49
Speaker 1: So we stood for a moment amid a changing world,
41:52
Speaker 1: exactly as he stood on that distant Sunday morning at
41:55
Speaker 1: the beginning of all these things. The South Sea Idol
41:59
Speaker 1: still stood at the corner. The scarecrow still wore the
42:03
Speaker 1: hat that he had sacrificed the cabbages still looked green
42:07
Speaker 1: and solid, like cabbages he had once dug up, and
42:11
Speaker 1: digging up so much along with it queer thing, he said,
42:17
Speaker 1: How true it is what Hillary once said about acting
42:20
Speaker 1: in allegory without knowing it. Never had a notion of
42:23
Speaker 1: what I was doing when I picked up a cabbage
42:26
Speaker 1: and wore it for a wager damn dowkward position. But
42:30
Speaker 1: I never dreamed I was being martyred for a symbol,
42:35
Speaker 1: and the right symbol too, for I have lived to
42:37
Speaker 1: see Brittannia crowned with cabbage. All very well to say,
42:41
Speaker 1: Britannia ruled the waves. It was the land she couldn't
42:44
Speaker 1: rule her own land, and it was heaving like earthquakes.
42:49
Speaker 1: But while there's cabbage, there's hope. Archer, my friend, this
42:53
Speaker 1: is the moral. Any country that tries to do without
42:56
Speaker 1: cabbages is done for than in war. You often fight
43:02
Speaker 1: as much with cabbages as with cannonballs. Yes, sir, said
43:07
Speaker 1: Archer respectfully. Would you be another cabbage now, sir? Colonel
43:13
Speaker 1: Crane repressed a slight shudder. No, thank you, No, thank you,
43:18
Speaker 1: he said hastily. Then he muttered as he turned away,
43:22
Speaker 1: I don't mind revolution so much, But I wouldn't go
43:26
Speaker 1: through that again. And he passed swiftly around his house,
43:30
Speaker 1: of which the windows began to show the glow of
43:33
Speaker 1: kindled lamps, and went in to his wife. Archer was
43:37
Speaker 1: left alone in the garden, tiding up after his work
43:40
Speaker 1: and shifting the potted shrubs, a dark and solitary figure,
43:45
Speaker 1: as sunset and twilight sank all round the enclosure like
43:49
Speaker 1: soft curtains of gray with a border of purple, and
43:53
Speaker 1: the windows as yet uncurtained and full of lamplight, painted
43:58
Speaker 1: patterns of gold on the lawns and flagged walks without.
44:02
Speaker 1: It was perhaps appropriate that he should remain alone and apart,
44:07
Speaker 1: for he alone, in all these changes, had remained quite unchanged.
44:13
Speaker 1: It was perhaps fitting that his figure should stand in
44:17
Speaker 1: a dark outline against the darkening scene, for the mystery
44:21
Speaker 1: of his immutable respectability remains more of a riddle than
44:25
Speaker 1: all the riot of the rest. No revolution could revolutionize
44:30
Speaker 1: mister Archer. Attempts had been made to provide so excellent
44:35
Speaker 1: a gardener with a garden of his own, with a
44:37
Speaker 1: farm of his own, in accordance with the popular policy
44:41
Speaker 1: of the hour, But he would not adapt himself to
44:44
Speaker 1: the new world, nor would he hasten to die out
44:48
Speaker 1: as was his duty. On evolutionary principles. He was merely
44:53
Speaker 1: a survival, but he showed a perplexing disposition to survive. Suddenly,
45:01
Speaker 1: the lonely gardener realized that he was not alone. A
45:05
Speaker 1: face it appeared above the hedge, gazing at him with
45:08
Speaker 1: blue eyes, dreaming yet burning, a face with something of
45:13
Speaker 1: the tint and profile of Shelley. It was impossible that
45:17
Speaker 1: mister Archer should have heard of such a person as Shelley.
45:22
Speaker 1: Fortunately he recognized a visitor as a friend of his master.
45:26
Speaker 1: Forgive me if I am mistaken, citizen Archer, said Hilary Pierce,
45:31
Speaker 1: with pathetic earnestness. But it seems to me that you
45:36
Speaker 1: are not swept along with the movement, that a man
45:39
Speaker 1: of your abilities has been allowed to stand apart, as
45:42
Speaker 1: it were, from the campaign of the Longbow. And yet
45:45
Speaker 1: how strange are you not, Archer? Does not your very
45:50
Speaker 1: name rise up and reproach you? Ought you not to
45:53
Speaker 1: have shot more arrows or told more teradentals than all
45:57
Speaker 1: the rest? Or is there perhaps a more elemental mystery
46:02
Speaker 1: behind your immorbility, like that of a statue in the garden.
46:08
Speaker 1: Are you indeed the god of the garden, more beautiful
46:11
Speaker 1: than the south Sea idol, and more respectable than Priapus?
46:16
Speaker 1: Are you, in no mortal sense an archer? Are you,
46:20
Speaker 1: perhaps Apollo serving this military armaetis successfully? Yes, successfully hiding
46:28
Speaker 1: your radiance from me? He paused for reply, and that
46:33
Speaker 1: lord his voices, he resumed. Or are you not rather
46:39
Speaker 1: that other archer whose shafts are not shafts of death,
46:44
Speaker 1: but of life and fruitfulness, whose arrows plant themselves like
46:49
Speaker 1: little flowering trees, like the little shrubs you are planting
46:53
Speaker 1: in this garden? Are you he that gives the sunstroke
46:58
Speaker 1: not in the head, in the heart? And have you
47:02
Speaker 1: stricken each of us in turn with the romance that
47:05
Speaker 1: has awakened us for the revolution? For without that spirit
47:10
Speaker 1: of fruitfulness and the promise of the family, these visions
47:14
Speaker 1: would indeed be vain. Are you, in truth the god
47:19
Speaker 1: of love? And has your arrows stung and startled each
47:23
Speaker 1: of us into telling his story? I will not call
47:27
Speaker 1: you cupid, he said, with a slight air of depreciation
47:32
Speaker 1: or apology. I will not call you cupid, mister archer,
47:37
Speaker 1: for I conceive that you are no pagan deity, but
47:41
Speaker 1: rather as that image clarified and spiritualized with symbol almost Christian,
47:48
Speaker 1: as he might have appeared to Chaucer or to Barticelli. Nay,
47:54
Speaker 1: it was you that clad in no heathen colors, but
47:59
Speaker 1: rather in MEDIEVALI Hildry blew a blast on his gold
48:03
Speaker 1: intrepend when Beatrice saluted Dante on the bridge. Are you
48:08
Speaker 1: indeed that archer, oh archer? And did you give each
48:14
Speaker 1: one of us as vita nuova no sa, said mister archer.
48:23
Speaker 1: Thus does the chronicler of the League of the Longbow
48:27
Speaker 1: come to the end of his singularly unproductive and unprofitable
48:32
Speaker 1: labors without perhaps having yet come to the beginning. The
48:37
Speaker 1: reader may have once hoped, perhaps that the story would
48:41
Speaker 1: be like the universe, which, when it ends, will explain
48:46
Speaker 1: whyat ever began. But the reader has long been sleeping
48:51
Speaker 1: after the toils and trials of his part in the affair,
48:55
Speaker 1: and the writer is too tactful to ask at how
48:59
Speaker 1: early a state age of his storytelling that generally satisfactory
49:03
Speaker 1: solution of all our troubles was found. He knows not
49:09
Speaker 1: if the sleep has been undisturbed, or in that sleep
49:13
Speaker 1: what dreams may come if there has been cast upon
49:17
Speaker 1: it any shadow of the shapes in his own very
49:21
Speaker 1: private and comfortable nightmare, turrets clad with the wings of mourning,
49:27
Speaker 1: or temples marching over dim meadows as living monsters, or
49:32
Speaker 1: swine plumed like cherubim, or forest bent like bows, or
49:38
Speaker 1: a fiery river winding through a dark land. Images are,
49:43
Speaker 1: in their nature indefensible if they miss the imagination of another.
49:50
Speaker 1: And the folly scribe of the Longbow will not commit
49:53
Speaker 1: the last folly of defending his dreams. He at least
49:58
Speaker 1: has drawn a bow at a venture and shot an
50:01
Speaker 1: arrow into the air, and he has no intention of
50:04
Speaker 1: looking for it in oaks all over the neighborhood, or
50:08
Speaker 1: expecting to find it still sticking in a mortal and
50:12
Speaker 1: murderous manner in the heart of a friend. His is
50:16
Speaker 1: only a toy bow, and when a boy shoots with
50:21
Speaker 1: such a bow, it is generally very difficult to find
50:26
Speaker 1: the arrow or the boy. The end end of chapter eight,
50:36
Speaker 1: end of Tales of the Longbow by G. K. Chesterton