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The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth Book 2 Chapter 1 - The Coming of the Food · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter one of the Food of the Gods
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  Speaker 1: and How It Came to Earth. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Alexey Tolander Davis, California. The Food of the Gods
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  Speaker 1: and How It Came to Earth by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, The Food in the Village, Chapter one, The
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  Speaker 1: Coming of the Food one. Our theme, which began so
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  Speaker 1: compactly mister Bensington's study, has already spread and branched until
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  Speaker 1: it points this way and that, and henceforth. Our whole
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  Speaker 1: story is one of dissemination. To follow the Food of
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  Speaker 1: the Gods further is to trace the ramifications of a
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  Speaker 1: perpetually branching tree. In a little while, in the quarter
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  Speaker 1: of a lifetime, the food had trickled and increased from
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  Speaker 1: its first spring in the little farm near Hickleybrow, until
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  Speaker 1: it had spread it and the report and shadow of
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  Speaker 1: its power throughout the world. It spread beyond England very speedily,
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  Speaker 1: soon in America all over the conder of Earth, Europe,
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  Speaker 1: in Japan, and Australia. At last, all over the world.
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  Speaker 1: The thing was working towards its appointed end. Always it
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  Speaker 1: worked slowly by indirect courses and against resistance. It was bigness,
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  Speaker 1: insurgent in spite of prejudice, in spite of law and regulation,
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  Speaker 1: in spite of all that obstinate conservatism that lies at
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  Speaker 1: the base of the formal orders of mankind. The food
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  Speaker 1: of the Gods, once it had been set going, pursued
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  Speaker 1: its subtle and invincible progress. The children of the food
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  Speaker 1: grew steadily through all these years. That was the cardinal
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  Speaker 1: fact of the time. But it is the leakage that
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  Speaker 1: make history. The children who had to eat and grew,
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  Speaker 1: and soon there were other children growing, And all the
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  Speaker 1: best intentions in the world could not stop further leakages.
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  Speaker 1: And still further leakages. The food insisted on escaping with
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  Speaker 1: the pertinacity of a thing. Alive. Flower treated with the stuff,
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  Speaker 1: crumbled in dry weather, almost as if by intention, into
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  Speaker 1: an impalpable powder, and would lift and travel before the
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  Speaker 1: lightest breeze. Now it would be some fresh insect won
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  Speaker 1: its way to temporary fatal new development. Now some fresh
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  Speaker 1: outbreak from the sewers of rat and sight like vermin.
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  Speaker 1: For some days, the village of Pangbourne in Berkshire fought
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  Speaker 1: with giant ants. Three men were bidden and died. There
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  Speaker 1: would be a panic, there would be a struggle and
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  Speaker 1: a Sailan evil would be fought down again, leaving always
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  Speaker 1: something behind in the obscure things of life changed forever,
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  Speaker 1: then again another acute and startling outbreak, a swift upgrowth
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  Speaker 1: of monstrous, weedy thickets, a drifting dissemination about the world
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  Speaker 1: of any humanly growing thistles of cockroach's. Men fought with
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  Speaker 1: shotguns of a plague of mighty flies. There was some
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  Speaker 1: strange and desperate struggles in obscure places. The food begot
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  Speaker 1: heroes in the cause of littleness, and men took such
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  Speaker 1: happenings into their lives and met them by the expedients
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  Speaker 1: of the moment, and told one another. There was no
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  Speaker 1: change in the essential order of things. After the first
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  Speaker 1: Great Panic, Caterham, in spite of his power of eloquence,
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  Speaker 1: became a secondary figure in the political world, remained in
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  Speaker 1: men's minds as the exponent of an extreme view. Only
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  Speaker 1: slowly did he went away towards the central position in affairs.
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  Speaker 1: There was no change in the essential order of things.
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  Speaker 1: That eminent leader of modern thought, doctor Winkles, was very
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  Speaker 1: clear upon this, and the exponents of what was called
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  Speaker 1: in those days progressive liberalism, grew quite sentimental upon the
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  Speaker 1: essential and sincerity of their progress. Their genes, it would appeared,
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  Speaker 1: ran wholly on little nations, little languages, little households, each
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  Speaker 1: self supported on its little farm. A fashion for the
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  Speaker 1: small and neat set in to be big was to
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  Speaker 1: be vulgar, and deity neat. Mignon, nimiature, minutely perfect became
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  Speaker 1: the key words of critical approval. Meanwhile, quietly, taking their time,
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  Speaker 1: as children must, the children of the food, growing into
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  Speaker 1: a world that changed to receive them, gathered strench in
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  Speaker 1: stature and knowledge, became individual and purposeful, rose slowly towards
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  Speaker 1: the dimensions of their destiny. Presently they seemed a natural
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  Speaker 1: part of the world. All these stirrings of bigness seemed
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  Speaker 1: a natural part of the world, and men wondered how
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  Speaker 1: things had been before their time. There came to men's
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  Speaker 1: ears stories of things the giant boys could do, and
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  Speaker 1: they said, wonderful. Without a spark of wonder the popular
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  Speaker 1: papers would tell the three sons of Cosser, and how
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  Speaker 1: these amazing children would lift great cannon, hurl masses of
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  Speaker 1: irons four hundreds of yards, and leap two hundred feet.
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  Speaker 1: They were said to be digging a well deeper than
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  Speaker 1: any well or mine that had ever been made, seeking,
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  Speaker 1: it was said, for treasures hidden in the earth since
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  Speaker 1: ever the earth began. These children said the popular magazines,
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  Speaker 1: will level mountains, bridge seas, tunnel your earth to a honeycomb. Wonderful,
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  Speaker 1: said the little folk, isn't it what a lot of
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  Speaker 1: convenience we shall have? And when about their businesses, though
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  Speaker 1: there was no such thing as the food of the
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  Speaker 1: gods on earth, And indeed these things were no more
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  Speaker 1: than the first hints and promises of the powers of
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  Speaker 1: the children of the food, it was still no more
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  Speaker 1: than child's play with them, no more than the first
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  Speaker 1: use of a strength in which no purpose had arisen.
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  Speaker 1: They did not know themselves for what they were. They
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  Speaker 1: were children, slow growing children of a new race. The
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  Speaker 1: giant strength grew day by day, the giant will had
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  Speaker 1: still to grow into purpose and in aim. Looking at
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  Speaker 1: it in a shortened perspective of time, those yse of
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  Speaker 1: transition have the quality of a single consecutive occurrence but
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  Speaker 1: indeed no one saw the coming of bigness in the world,
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  Speaker 1: as no one in all the world to centuries had
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  Speaker 1: passed saw as one happening the decline and fall of Rome.
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  Speaker 1: They who lived in those days were too much among
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  Speaker 1: these developments to see them together as a single thing.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed even to wise men that the food was
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  Speaker 1: giving the world nothing but a crop of unmanageable, disconnected,
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  Speaker 1: irrelevancies that might shake in trouble indeed, but could do
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  Speaker 1: no more than the established order and fablic of mankind.
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  Speaker 1: To one observer, at least, the most wonderful thing throughout
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  Speaker 1: that period of accumulating streats is the invincible inertia of
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  Speaker 1: the great mass of people, their quiet persistence in all
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  Speaker 1: that ignored the enormous prisonces, the promise of still more
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  Speaker 1: enormous things that grew among them. Just as many a
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  Speaker 1: stream will be at its smoothest will look almost tranquil,
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  Speaker 1: running deep and strong at the very verge of a cataract,
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  Speaker 1: so all that is most conservative in man seen settling
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  Speaker 1: quietly into a serene ascendency. During these latter days, reaction
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  Speaker 1: became popular. There was talk of the bankruptcy of science,
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  Speaker 1: of the dying of progress, or the advent of the mandarins.
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  Speaker 1: Talk of such things amidst the echoing footsteps of the
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  Speaker 1: children of the food, the fuzzy, witless revolutions of the
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  Speaker 1: old time, a vast crowd of silly little people chasing
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  Speaker 1: some silly little monarch and the like had indeed died
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  Speaker 1: out and passed away. But change had not died out.
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  Speaker 1: It was only changed that it changed. The new was
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  Speaker 1: coming in its own fashion and beyond the common understanding
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  Speaker 1: of the world. To tell fully of its coming would
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  Speaker 1: be to write a great history. But everywhere there was
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  Speaker 1: a parallel chain of happenings. To tell, therefore, of the
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  Speaker 1: matter of its coming in one place is to tell
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  Speaker 1: something of the whole it chanced. One stray seed of
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  Speaker 1: immensity fell into the pretty petty village of Cheesing Eyebright
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  Speaker 1: and Kent, and from the story of its queer germination there,
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  Speaker 1: and what of the tragic futility that ensued, One may attempt,
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  Speaker 1: following one threat, as it were, to show the direction
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  Speaker 1: in which the whole great interwoven fabric of the thing
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  Speaker 1: rolled off the loom of time. Two Cheesing Eyebright had,
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  Speaker 1: of course a vicar. There are vicars and vicars, and
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  Speaker 1: of all sorts of vicars, I love an innovating vicar,
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  Speaker 1: a piebald, progressive, professional reactionary the least. But the vicar
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  Speaker 1: of Cheesing Eyebright was one of the least innovating of Victory,
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  Speaker 1: a most worthy, plump, ripe and conservative minded little man.
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  Speaker 1: It is becoming to go back a little in our
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  Speaker 1: story to tell of him. He matched his village, and
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  Speaker 1: one may figure them best together as they used to
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  Speaker 1: be on the sunset evening, when missus Skinner, you will
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  Speaker 1: remember her flight, brought the food with her, all unsuspected
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  Speaker 1: into these rustic serenities. The village was looking its very best.
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  Speaker 1: Just then, under that western light he lay down along
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  Speaker 1: the valley beneath the beech woods of the hangar, A
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  Speaker 1: beating of thatched and red tiled cottages, cottages with trellised
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  Speaker 1: porches and pyracanthus lined faces. The clustered closer and closer.
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  Speaker 1: As the road dropped from the yew trees by the
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  Speaker 1: church towards the bridge. The vicarage peeped, not too ostentatiously
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  Speaker 1: between the trees. Beyond the inn, an early Georgian front
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  Speaker 1: ripened by time, and the spy of the church rose
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  Speaker 1: happily in the depression made by the valley. In the
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  Speaker 1: outline of the hills, a winding stream, a thin intermittency
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  Speaker 1: of sky, blue and foam glittered amidst a thick margin
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  Speaker 1: of reeds and loose strife, and overhaving willows along the
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  Speaker 1: center of a sinewl pennant of meadow. The whole prospect
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  Speaker 1: had that curiously English quality of rip and cultivation, that
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  Speaker 1: look of still completeness, that apes perfection under the sunset warmth.
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  Speaker 1: And the vicar too looked mellow. He looked viitually, in
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  Speaker 1: essentially mellow, as though he had been a mellow baby,
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  Speaker 1: born into a mellow class, a ripe and juicy little boy.
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  Speaker 1: One could see even before he mentioned it that he
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  Speaker 1: had gone to an ivy clad public school in its anecdotage,
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  Speaker 1: with magnificent traditions, aristocratic associations, and no chemical laboratories, and
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  Speaker 1: proceeded thence to a venerable college in the very ripest Gothic.
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  Speaker 1: Few books he had younger than a thousand years. Of these,
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  Speaker 1: yarrow and ellis, and good pre Methodist servants made the bulk.
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  Speaker 1: He was a man of moderate height, a little shortened
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  Speaker 1: in appearance by his equatorial dimensions, and a face that
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  Speaker 1: had been mellow from the first was now climacatarily ripe.
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  Speaker 1: The beard of David hid his redundancy of chin. He
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  Speaker 1: wore no watch chain out of refinements, and his modest
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  Speaker 1: clerical garments were made by a West End tailor, and
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  Speaker 1: he sat with a hand on either shin, blinking at
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  Speaker 1: his village beatific approval. He waved a plumb palm towards it.
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  Speaker 1: His burthens sang out again, what more could any one desire?
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  Speaker 1: We are fortunately situated, he said, putting the thing tamely.
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  Speaker 1: We are at a fastness of the hills, they expanded.
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  Speaker 1: He explained himself to Lent. We are out of it all.
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  Speaker 1: For they have been talking, he and his friend, of
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  Speaker 1: the horrors of the age of democracy and secular education,
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  Speaker 1: and sky scrapers and motor cars, and the American invasion,
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  Speaker 1: the scrappy reading of the public, and the disappearance of
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  Speaker 1: any taste at all. We are out of it all,
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  Speaker 1: he repeated, And even as he spoke, the footsteps of
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  Speaker 1: some one coming smote upon his ear, and he rolled
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  Speaker 1: over and regarded her. You figure the old woman's steadfastly
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  Speaker 1: tremulous advance, the bundle clutched in her gnarled, lank hand,
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  Speaker 1: her nose, which was her countenance, wrinkled with breastless resolution.
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  Speaker 1: You see the poppies nodding fatefully on a bonnet, and
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  Speaker 1: the dust white spring sided boots beneath her skimpy skirts
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  Speaker 1: pointing with an irrevocable slow alternation east and west. Beneath
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  Speaker 1: her arm, a rest of captive waggled and slept as
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  Speaker 1: scarcely valley umbrella, who was there to tell the vicar
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  Speaker 1: that this grotesque old figure was, so far as the
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  Speaker 1: village was concerned, at any rate, no less than fruitful
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  Speaker 1: chance in the unforeseen The hank weak men call fate.
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  Speaker 1: But for us you understand no more than missus skinner.
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  Speaker 1: And she was too much encumbered for a courtesy. She
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  Speaker 1: was pretending not to see him and his friend at all,
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  Speaker 1: and so passed flip flop within three yards of them,
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  Speaker 1: onward down towards the village. The vicar watched her slow
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  Speaker 1: transit in silence and rip from the remark the while
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  Speaker 1: the instant seemed to have no importance. Whatever old womankind
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  Speaker 1: are Perenneus had carried bundles since the world began. What
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  Speaker 1: difference has it made. We're out of it all, said
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  Speaker 1: the Vicar. We live in an atmosphere of simple and
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  Speaker 1: permanent things, birth and toil, simple seed, time and simple harvests.
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  Speaker 1: The uproar passes us by. He was always very great
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  Speaker 1: upon what he called the permanent things. Things change, she
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  Speaker 1: would say, but humanity are Pyerenneus. Thus the Vicar, he
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  Speaker 1: loved a classical quotation suddenly misapplied blown. Missus Skinner in
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  Speaker 1: elegant but resolute, had involved herself curiously with Woldemerding's style. Three.
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  Speaker 1: No one knows what the Vicar made of the giant
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  Speaker 1: puff balls. No doubt he was among the first to
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  Speaker 1: discover them. They were scattered at invoals up and down
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  Speaker 1: the path between the nearer Down and the village inn,
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  Speaker 1: a path he frequented daily in his constitutional round. Altogether,
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  Speaker 1: of these abnormal fungi, they were, from first to last
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  Speaker 1: quite thirty. The Vicar seemed to have stared at each severally,
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  Speaker 1: and have trodded with us to them with his stick
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  Speaker 1: once or twice. One he attempted to measure with his arms,
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  Speaker 1: but it burst at his exion embrace. He spoke to
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  Speaker 1: several people about them and said they were marvelous, and
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  Speaker 1: he related to at least seven different persons the well
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  Speaker 1: known story of the flagstone that was lifted from the
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  Speaker 1: cellar floor by a growth of fungi beneath. He looked
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  Speaker 1: up his sower bee to see if it was like
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  Speaker 1: a purdon coelatum or gigantium. Like all his kind. Since
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  Speaker 1: Gilbert White became famous, he Gilbert Whited, he cherished a
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  Speaker 1: theory that that gigantium is unfair named. One does not
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  Speaker 1: know if he observed that those white spheres lay in
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  Speaker 1: the very track that old woman of yesterday had followed,
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  Speaker 1: or if he noted the last of the series swelled
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  Speaker 1: not a score of yards from the gate of the
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  Speaker 1: cattle's cottage. If he observed these things, he made no
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  Speaker 1: attempt to place his observation on record. His observation in
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  Speaker 1: matters botanical was what the inferior sort of scientific people
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  Speaker 1: call a trained observation. He looked for certain definite things
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  Speaker 1: and neglect everything else. And he did nothing to link
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  Speaker 1: this phenomenon with the remarkable expansion of the cattle's baby
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  Speaker 1: that had been going on now for some weeks, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: ever since Cattles walked over one Sunday afternoon a month
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  Speaker 1: or more ago to see his mother in law and
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  Speaker 1: hear mister Skinner, since defunct, brag about his management of
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  Speaker 1: Hens four, the growth of the poth balls following on
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  Speaker 1: the expansion of the Cattle's Baby where he ought to
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  Speaker 1: have opened the Vicar's eyes that that effect had already
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  Speaker 1: come right into his arms at the christening. Almost overpoweringly,
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  Speaker 1: the youngster bawled with deafening violence when the cold water
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  Speaker 1: that sealed its divine inheritance and its right to the
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  Speaker 1: name of Albert Edward Cattle's fell upon its brow. It
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  Speaker 1: was already beyond maternal Potteridge, and Cattles, staggering, indeed, but
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  Speaker 1: grinning triumphantly of quantitatively inferior appearance, bore it back to
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  Speaker 1: the free sitting occupied by his party. I never saw
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  Speaker 1: such a child, said the vicar. This was the first
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  Speaker 1: public intimation of the Cattle's Baby, which had begun its
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  Speaker 1: earthly career a little under seven pounds, did, after all,
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  Speaker 1: intend to be a credit to its parents. Very soon
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  Speaker 1: it was clear it meant to be not only a
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  Speaker 1: credit but a glory, and within a month their glory
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  Speaker 1: shone so brightly as to be in connection with people
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  Speaker 1: in the cattle's position improper. The butcher weighed the infant
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  Speaker 1: eleven times. He was a man of few words, and
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  Speaker 1: he soon got through with them. The first time he
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  Speaker 1: said he's a good un. The next time he said
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  Speaker 1: my word. The third time he said well mum, and
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  Speaker 1: after that he simply blew enormously each time, scratched his
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  Speaker 1: head and looked at his scales with an unprecedented mistrust.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone came to see the big baby, so it was
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  Speaker 1: called by universal consent, and most of them said, ease
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  Speaker 1: a bouncer, and almost all remarked to him, did they miss?
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  Speaker 1: Fletcher came and said she never did, which was pervertly true.
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  Speaker 1: Lady Wondershoote, the village tyrant arrived the day after the
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  Speaker 1: third weighing and inspected the phenomenon narrowly through glasses that
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  Speaker 1: filled it with howling terror. It is an unusually big child,
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  Speaker 1: she told its mother a loud instructive voice. You ought
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  Speaker 1: to take unusual care of it. Cattle's of course, it
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  Speaker 1: won't go on like this being bottle fed. But we
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  Speaker 1: must do what we can for it. I'll send you
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  Speaker 1: down some more flannel. The doctor came and measured the
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  Speaker 1: child with a tape and put the figures in a notebook.
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  Speaker 1: And old mister drift Hasseock, who fanned up by up Martin,
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  Speaker 1: brought a manure traveler two miles out of their way
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  Speaker 1: to look at it. The traveler asked the child's age
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  Speaker 1: three times over and said fani that he was blowed.
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  Speaker 1: He left it to be interfered how and why he
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  Speaker 1: was blowed. Apparently it was the child's sighs blowed him.
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  Speaker 1: He also said it ought to be put into a
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  Speaker 1: baby show. And all day long, out of school hours,
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  Speaker 1: little children kept coming and saying, please missus Cattle's, ma'am,
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  Speaker 1: and we have a look yet out your baby, please, ma'am,
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  Speaker 1: until missus Cattle's had to put a stop to it.
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  Speaker 1: And amidst all these scenes of amazement, came Missus Skinner
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  Speaker 1: and stood and smiled, standing somewhat in the background with
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  Speaker 1: each sharp elbow in a lank, gnarled hand, and smiling,
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  Speaker 1: smiling under and about her nose, with a smile of
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  Speaker 1: infinite profundity. It makes even that old wretch of her grandmother.
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  Speaker 1: Look quite pleasant, said Lady Wondershute, though I'm sorry she's
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  Speaker 1: come back to the village. Of course, as with almost
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  Speaker 1: all cottages, babies the elements Sary Elmont had already come in,
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  Speaker 1: but the child soon made it clear by colossal bawling
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  Speaker 1: that so far as the filling of its bottle went,
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  Speaker 1: it hadn't come in yet. Nearly enough, the baby was
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  Speaker 1: entitled to a nine days wonder, and everyone wanted happily
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  Speaker 1: over its amazing growth for twice that time and more,
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  Speaker 1: and then, you know, instead of its dropping into the
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  Speaker 1: background and giving place to other marvels, at one ungrowing
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  Speaker 1: more than ever, Lady Wondershoot heard Missus Greenfield, her housekeeper,
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  Speaker 1: with infinite amazement. Cattle's downstairs again. No food for the child,
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  Speaker 1: My dear Greenfield, it's impossible. The creature eats like a hippopotamus.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it can't be true. I'm sure. I hope
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: you're not being imposed upon, my lady, said Missus Greenfield.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: It's so difficult to tell with these people, said Lady Wanderschute.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Now I do wish, my good Greenfield, that you'd go
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: down there yourself. It's afternoon, and see see it have
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: its bottle big as it is. I cannot imagine that
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: it needs more than six points a day. It hasn't
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: no business too, my lady, said Missus Greenfield. The hand
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of Lady Wondershute quivered with that cos sort of emotion,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that suspicious rage that stirs in all true aristocrats at
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the thought that possibly the meaner classes are after all
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: as mean as their betters, and where the sting lies
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: scoring points in the game. But Missus Greenfield could observe
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: no evidence of peculation, and the order for an increasing
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: daily supply to the cattle's nursery was issued. Scarcely had
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the first installment gone. When Cattles was back again at
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the Great House in a state of abjectly apologetic we
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: took the Great's care of him, Missus Greenfield, I do
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: assure you, Mum, Biddy's regular burst em They flew with
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: such villains, Mum, and one hit me a regular sting
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: at jest. Dear Mum. Lady Wundershote, when she heard that
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: this amazing child had positively burst out of his beautiful
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: charity clothes, decided she must speak to Cattles herself. He
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: appeared in her presence, with his hair hastily wetted and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: smoothed by hand, breathless and clinging to his hat brim
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: as though it was a life belt, and he stumbled
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: at the carpet edge out of sheer distress of mind.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Lady Wuanaschue liked bullying Cattle's. Cattles was her ideal lower
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: class person, dishonest, faithful, abject, industrious, and inconceivdly incapable of responsibility.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: She told him it was a serious matter, the way
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: his child was going on. It's his appetite, my ladyship,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: said Kettles, with a rising note. Check him, my ladyship,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: you can't, said Cattles. There he lies, my ladyship, and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: kicks out he does, and owls that distressing. We haven't
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the art, my ladyship. If we at the Nabis would interfere.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Lady Wuanaschue consulted the parish doctor. What I want to know,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: said Lady Wuanershot. Is is it right this child should
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: have such an extraordinary quantity of milk? The proper allowance
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: for a child of that age, said the parish doctor.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: It's a fine and a half to two pints in
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the twenty four hours. I don't see that you are
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: called upon to provide more. If you do, it is
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: your own generosity. Of course, we might try the deegenminate
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: quantity for a few days. But the child, I must admit,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: scenes for some reason, to be physiologically different, possibly what
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: is called a sport, a case of general hypertrophy. It
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: isn't fair to the other parish children, said lady one
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: to shoot. I am certain we shall have complaints if
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: this goes on. I don't see that anyone can be
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: expected to give more than the recognized allowance. We might
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: insist on its doing with that, or, if it wouldn't,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: send it as a case into the infirmary, I suppose,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: said Lady one in shot, reflecting that apart from the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: size and appetite, you don't find anything else of normal,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: nothing monstrous. No, no, I don't, But no doubt if
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: this growth goes on we shall find grave moral and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: intellectual deficiencies. One might almost prophesy that from Max Nordau's law,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: a most gifted celebrated philosopher a lady want to shoot,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: he discovered that the abnormal is abnormal. A most valuable
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: discovery and well worth bearing in mind, I find it
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of the utmost help in practice. When I come upon
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: anything abnormal, I say at once, this is abnormal. His
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: eyes became profound, his voice dropped, his manner verged upon
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the intimately confidential. He raised one hand stiffly, and I
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: treat it in that spirit, he said. Five. Tut tut,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: said the vicar to his breakfast thing the day after
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the coming of missus Skinner. Tut tut. What's this? Emploised
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: his glasses at his paper, with the general air of remonstrance.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Giant wasps. What's the world coming to American journalists? I
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: suppose hang these novelties giant gooseberries are good enough for me. Nonsense,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: said the vicar, and drank off his coffee at a gulp,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: eyes steadfast on the paper, and smacked his lips incredulously. Bosh,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: said the vicar, rejecting the hand altogether. But the next
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: day there was more of it, and the light came
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: not all at once. However, when he went for his
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: constitutional that day, he was still chuckling at the observed story.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: His paper would have had him believe. Wasps indeed killing
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a dog incidentally, as he passed by the side of
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that fir crp of puffballs, he remarked that the grass
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: was growing very rank there, but he did not connect
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: that in any way with the matter of his amusement.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: We should certainly have heard something of it, he said.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Whitch stable camp be twenty miles from here. Beyond he
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: found another profball, one of the second crop, rising like
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: a rock's egg out of the abnormally coarsened irt turf.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: The thing came upon him in a flash. He did
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: not take his usual round that morning. Instead, he turned
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: aside by the second style and came round to the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: cattle's cottage. Where's that baby, he demanded, And at the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: sight of it, goodness me. He went up the village,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: blessing his heart, and met the doctor full tilt. Coming down,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: he grasped his arm. What does this mean? He said?
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Have you seen the paper these last few days? The
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: doctor said he had, Well, what's the matter with that child?
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: What's the matter with everything? Wasps? Puffballs? Babies? Eh, what's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: making them row so big? This is most unexpected, and
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: kent too if it was America. Now it's a little
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: difficult to say just what it is. Said the doctor.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: So far as I can grasp the symptoms, Yes, it's hypertrophy,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: general hyperti trophy hypertrophy, Yes, general, affecting all the bodily structures,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: all the organism. I may say that in my own
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: mind between ourselves, I'm very nearly convinced it's that. But
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: one has to be careful. Ah, said the vicar, A
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: good deal, relieved to find the doctor equal to the situation.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: But how is it breaking out of this in this
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: fashion all over the place? That, again, said the doctor,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: is difficult to say. Ershot here, it's a pretty clear
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: case of spreading, yes, said the doctor. Yes, I think so.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: It is a strong resemblance, at any rate, to some
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: sort of epidemic, probably epidemic. Hypertrophy will meet the case epidemic,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: said the vicar. You don't mean it's contagious. The doctor
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: smiled gently and rubbed one hand against the other. That
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I couldn't say, he said, but cried the vicar round eyed.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: If it's catching it, it affects us. He made a
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: stride up the road and turned about. I've just been there,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: he cried, Hadn't I better? I'll go home at once
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and have a bath, and fumigate my clothes. The doctor
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: regarded his retreating back for a moment, and then turned
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: about and went towards his own home. Back on the way,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: he reflected that one case had bid in the village
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a month without any one catching the disease, and after
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a pause of hesitation, decided to be as brave a
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: doctor as should be and take the risks like a man.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And indeed he was well advised on it by his
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: second thoughts. Growth was the last thing that could ever
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: happen to him again. He could have eaten, and the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: vicar could have eaten heracicllyophobia by the truck full, for
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: growth had beyne with them. Growth had done with these
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: two gentlemen for evermore. Six. It was a day or
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: so after this conversation, a day or so, that is,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: after the burning of the experimental farm, the Winkles came
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to Redwood and showed him an insulting bett letter. It
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: was an anonymous letter. An author should respect his character's secrets.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: You are only taking credit for a natural phenomenon, said
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the letter, and trying to advertise yourself by letter to
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the times, you and your boom food. Let me tell you.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: This absurdly named fruit of yours has only the most
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: accidental connection with those big wasps and rats. The plain
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: fact is there is an epidemic of hypertrophy, contagious hypertrophy,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: which you have about as much clain to control as
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: you have to control the solar system. The thing is
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: as old as the hills. There was hypertrophy in the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: family of anak. How quite outside your reigned a cheesing
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: eyebright at the present time, there is a baby, shaky
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: up and down riding. Old gentleman, apparently, said Rudwood. But
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it's odd a baby. He read a few father lions
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and had an inspiration by Jove, said he that's my
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: missing missus Skinner. He descended upon her suddenly in the afternoon.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: The following day, she was engaged in pulling onions in
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the little garden before her daughter's cottage. When she saw
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: him coming through the garden gate. She stood for a moment, consternated,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: as the country folks say, and then folded her arms, and,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: with a little bunch of onions held defensively under her
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: left elbow, awaited his approach. Her mouth opened and shut
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: several times. She mumbled her remaining tooth and quince. Quite
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: suddenly she curtsied, like the blink of an arc light.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I thought I should find you, said Rudwood. I thought
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: you might, sir, she said, without joy. Where's Skinner? Ye
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: ain't never written to me, sir, not once, not come
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: nigh me since I came here, sir? Do you know
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: what's become of him? Him not having written, no, sir,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And she had to stepped towards the left with an
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: imperfect idea of cutting off Redwood from the barn door.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: No one knows what has become of him, said Wodwood.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I dar say he knows, said missus Skinner. He doesn't tell.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: He was always a great one for looking after himself
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and leaving them that was near and dear to him
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: in trouble with Skinner, though clever as he could be,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: said Missus Skinner. Where's this child? Asked Redwood. Abruptly, she
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: begged his pardon this child? I hear about the child.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: You've been giving our stuff to the child that weighs
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: two stone. Missus Skinner's hands worked and she dropped the onions. Really, sir,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: she protested, I don't hardly know, sir, what you mean
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: my daughter, sir, Missus Cattle's as a baby, sir. And
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: she made an agitated courtesy and tried to look innocently
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: inquiring by tilting her nose to one side. You'd better
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: let me see that baby, missus Skinner, said Redwood. Missus
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Skinner on master and eye at him, as she led
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the way towards the barn. Of course, Sir, there may
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: have been a little and a little can of nicey
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I gave his father to bring over from the farm,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: or little pamp. That's what I happened to bring about
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: with me, so to speak. Me packing and hurry and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: all um, said Redwood, after he had cluckered to the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: infant for a space, whom he told Missus Caddell's the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: baby was a very fine child, indeed a thing that
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: was getting well home to her intelligence, and ignored her altogether.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: After that, presently she left the barn through sheer insignificance.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Now you've started him, you'll have to keep on with him,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: you know, he said to Missus Skinner. He turned on
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: her abruptly. Don't splash it about this time, he said,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: splash it about, sir, Oh you know. She indicated knowledge
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: by convulsive gestures. You haven't told these people here, the parents,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the squire, and so on. At the big house the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: doctor no one, missus Skinner, shook her head. I wouldn't,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: said Redwood. He went to the door of the barn
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and surveyed the world about him. The door of the
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: barn looked between the end of the cottage and some
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: disused piggeries through a five barred gate upon the high road.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Beyond was a high red brick wall, rich with ivy
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and wallflower and pennywart, and set along the top with
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: broken glass. Beyond the core of the wall, the sunlit
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: notice board, amidst green and yellow branches, reared itself above
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the rich tones of the first fallen leaves, and announced
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: that trespasses in these woods will we be prosecuted. The
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: dark shadow of a gap in the hedge threw a
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: stretch of barbed wire into relief. Um, said Rodwood, and
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: in a desperate note, m There came a clatter of
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: horses and the sound of wheels, and Lady Wondershuot's graze
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: came into view. He marked the face of the coachman
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and footman as they ecquipyed approach the coachman was a
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: very fine specimen, full and fruity, and he drove with
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: a sort of sacramental dignity. Others might doubt their calling
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a position in the world, He, at any rate, was
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: sure he drove for her ladyship. The footman sat beside
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: him with folded arms and a face of inflexible certainties.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Then the great Lady herself became visible, in a hat
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and mantle, disdainfully and elegant, peering through her glasses. Two
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: young ladies protruded the necks appeared also. The vicar, passing
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: on the other side, swept off the hat from his
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: David's brow. Unheeded, Edward remained standing in the doorway for
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: a long time after the carriage had passed, his hands
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: behind him. His eyes went to the green gray upland
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of down and into the cloud curled sky, and came
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: back to the glass set wall. He turned upon the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: cool shadows within, and amid spots and blurs of color,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: regarded the giant child amidst that Rembrandt esque gloom, naked
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: except for a swathing of flannel, seated upon a huge
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: shreds of straw, and playing with its toes. I begin
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: to see what we have done, he said, he mused,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and young cattles on his own child, and Cossa's brood
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: mingled in his musing. He laughed abruptly, Good Lord, he said.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: At some passing thought. He roused himself presently, and addressed
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Missus Skinner. Anyhow, he mustn't be tortured by a break
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: in his food, that at least we can prevent. I
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: shall send you a can every six months. That ought
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to do for him, all right. Missus Skinner mumbled something
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: about if you think so, sir, and probably got packed
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: by mistake, though no harm in in giving him a little,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and so by the aid of various aspen gestures, indicated
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: that she understood. So the child went on growing and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: growing practically, said Lady Wonderschute. He's eaten up every calf
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: in the place. If I have any more of this
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: sort of thing from that band cattle's seven. But even so,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: secluded a place as cheesing eyebright could not rest for
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: long in the theory of hypertrophy, contagious or not, in
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: view of the growing hubbub about the food. In a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: little while, there were painful explanations from Missus skinner explanations
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that reduced her to speechless mumblings of her remaining tooth,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: explanations that probed her and ransector and exposed her, until
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: at last she was driven to take refuge from a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: universal convergence of blame in the dignity of inconsolable widowhood.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: She turned her eye, which she constrained to be watery,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: upon the angry lady of the manor, and wiped SuDS
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: from her hands. You forget, my lady, what I'm bearing
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: up under. And she followed up this warning note with
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a slightly defiant it's im I think of m lady
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: night and day. She compressed her lips and her voice
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: flattened and faulted. Be in it, my lady, And having
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: established herself on these grounds, she repeated the affirmation her
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: ladyship had refused before. I had no more idea what
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I was given the child, my lady, than anyone could have.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Her lady ship turned her mind in more hopeful directions.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Wigging cattles, of course tremendously by the way emissaries full
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: of diplomatic threatenings, and at the whirling lines of Bensington
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and Redwood, they presented themselves as parish councilors, stolid and
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: clinging phonographically to pre arranged statements. We hold you responsible,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: mister Bensington, for the injury inflicted upon our parish. Sir,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: we hold you responsible. A firm of solicitors with the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: snake of a style Banghurst, brown Flap, Codlin, Brown, Teter,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and Snoxden, they called themselves, and appeared invariably in the
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: form of a small rufous, cunning looking gentlemen with pointed nose,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: said vague things about damages. And there was a polished personage,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a ladyship's agent, who came in suddenly upon Redwood one
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: day and asked, well, sir, and what do you propose
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to do to rich Redwood answered that he proposed to
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: could discontinue supplying the food for the child if he
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: o Bensington were bothered any further about the matter. I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: give it for nothing as it is, he said, And
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the child will yell your village to ruins before it
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: dies if you don't let it. Have the stuff the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: child on your hands, and you have to keep it.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Lady Wanderschute can't always be lady, bountiful and earthly providence
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: of her parish without sometimes meeting of responsibility. You know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the mischief's done, Lady Wunschue decided when they told her
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: with expurgations, what would have said? The Mischief's done, echoed
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the vicar, though indeed, as a matter of fact, the
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: mischief was only beginning. End of book two, Chapter one
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of the Food of the Gods and How It Came
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: to Earth. Recording by Alexei Tolander Davis, California, www dot
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: alextalander dot com.