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The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth Book 3 Chapter 5 - The Giant Leaguer · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book three, chapter five of the Food of the Gods
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Speaker 1: and How It Came to Earth. This is the LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings were 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 alex he Tolander Davis, California. The Food of the
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Speaker 1: Gods and How It Came to Earth by H. G. Wells,
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Speaker 1: Book three, chapter five. The Giant Leaguer one. Presently Redwood
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Speaker 1: found himself in a train going south over the Thames.
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Speaker 1: He had a brief vision of the river shining under
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Speaker 1: its lights, and of the smoke still going up from
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Speaker 1: the place where the shell had fallen on the north bank,
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Speaker 1: and where a vast multitude of men had been organized
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Speaker 1: to burn the heraclophobia out of the ground. The southern
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Speaker 1: bank was dark for some reason. Even the streets were
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Speaker 1: not lit. All that was clearly visible was the outlines
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Speaker 1: of the tall alarm towers and the dark bulks of
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Speaker 1: flats and schools. And after a minute, appearing scrutiny, he
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Speaker 1: turned his back on the window and sank into thought.
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Speaker 1: There was nothing more to see or do until he
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Speaker 1: saw the sun's He was fatigued by the stresses of
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Speaker 1: the last two days. It seemed to him that his
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Speaker 1: emotions must needs be exhausted. But he had fortified himself
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Speaker 1: with strong coffee before starting, and his thoughts ran thin
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Speaker 1: and clear. His mind touched many things. He reviewed again,
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Speaker 1: but now in the enlightenment of accomplished events, the manner
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Speaker 1: in which the food had entered and unfolded itself in
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Speaker 1: the world, Bensington thought it might be an excellent food
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Speaker 1: of infants. He whispered to himself with a faint smile.
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Speaker 1: Then they came into his mind as vivid as if
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Speaker 1: they were still unsettled his own horrible doubts. After he
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Speaker 1: had committed himself by giving it to his own son.
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Speaker 1: From that with a steady, unfaltering expansion, in spite of
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Speaker 1: every effort of men to help and hinder, the food
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Speaker 1: had spread through the whole world of man. And now
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Speaker 1: even if they killed them all, Redwood whispered, the thing
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Speaker 1: is done. The secret of its making was known far
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Speaker 1: and wide. That had been his own work. Plants, animals,
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Speaker 1: a multitude of distressful growing children would conspire irresistibly to
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Speaker 1: force the world to revert again to the food. Whatever
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Speaker 1: happened in the present struggle. The thing is done, he said,
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Speaker 1: with his mind swinging round beyond all his controlling to
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Speaker 1: rest upon the prison fate of the children and his son.
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Speaker 1: Would he find them exhausted by the efforts of the battle, wounded,
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Speaker 1: starving on the verge of defeat, or would he find
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Speaker 1: them still stout and hopeful, ready for the still grimmer
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Speaker 1: conflict of the morrow. His son was wounded, but he
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Speaker 1: had sent a message. His mind came back to his
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Speaker 1: interview with Cadahan. He was roused from his thoughts by
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Speaker 1: the stopping of his train in Chiselhurst Station. He recognized
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Speaker 1: the place by the huge rat alarm tower that crested
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Speaker 1: Camden Hill and the road of blossoming giant hemlocks that
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Speaker 1: lined the road. Cadahan's private secretary came to him from
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Speaker 1: the other carriage and told him that half a mile
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Speaker 1: farther the lion had been wrecked, and that the rest
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Speaker 1: of the journey was to be made in a motor car.
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Speaker 1: Redwood descended upon a flatform, let only by a hand lantern,
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Speaker 1: and swept by the cool night breeze. The quiet of
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Speaker 1: that derelict wood set wheat embedded suburb for all the
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Speaker 1: inhabitants had taken refuge in London at the outbreak of
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Speaker 1: yesterday's conflict became instantly impressive. His conductor took him down
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Speaker 1: the steps to where a motor car was waiting with
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Speaker 1: blazing lights the only lights to be seen, handed him
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Speaker 1: over to the care of the driver and bade him
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Speaker 1: for roll. You will do our best for us, he said,
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Speaker 1: with an imitation of his master's manner, as he held
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Speaker 1: Redwood's hand. So soon as Redwood could be wrapped about,
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Speaker 1: they started out into the night. At one moment they
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Speaker 1: stood still, and then the motor car was rushing softly
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Speaker 1: and swiftly down the station incline. They turned one corner
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Speaker 1: and another, followed the windings of a lane of villas,
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Speaker 1: and then before them stretched the road. The motor droned
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Speaker 1: up to his topmost speed, and the black knight swept
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Speaker 1: past them. Everything was very dark under the starlight, and
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Speaker 1: the whole world crouched mysteriously and was gone without a sound.
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Speaker 1: Not a breath stirred the flying things by the wayside.
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Speaker 1: The deserted, pallid white villas on either hand, with their black,
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Speaker 1: unlit windows, reminded him of a noiseless procession of skulls.
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Speaker 1: The driver beside him was a silent man, or stricken
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Speaker 1: into silence by the conditions of his journey. He answered
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Speaker 1: Redwood's brief questions in monosyllables and gruffly. Athwart the southern sky,
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Speaker 1: the beans with searchlights waved noiseless passes. The soul strange
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Speaker 1: evidences of life they seemed in all that direct world
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Speaker 1: about the hurrying machine. The road was presently bordered on
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Speaker 1: either side by gigantic blackthorn shoots that made it very dark,
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Speaker 1: and by tall grass and big campions, huge giant dead
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Speaker 1: nettles as high as trees, flickering paras starkly and silhouette overhead.
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Speaker 1: Beyond caston, they came to a rising hill, and the
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Speaker 1: driver went slow. At the crest, he stopped. The engine, throbbed,
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Speaker 1: and became still. There, he said, and his big gloved
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Speaker 1: finger pointed a black, misshapen thing before Redwood's eides. Far away,
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Speaker 1: as it seemed, the great embankment, crested by the blazes
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Speaker 1: from which the search lights sprang, rose up against the sky.
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Speaker 1: Those beams went and came among the clouds and the
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Speaker 1: hilly lad about them, as if they traced mysterious incantations.
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Speaker 1: I don't know, said the driver at last, and it
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Speaker 1: was clear he was afraid to go on. Presently, a
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Speaker 1: searchlight swept down the sky to them, stopped as it were,
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Speaker 1: with a start screwed ugnized them a blinding stare confused
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Speaker 1: rather than misinmitigated by an interveating monstrous weed stem. Or
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Speaker 1: So they sat with their gloves held over their eyes,
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Speaker 1: trying to look under them and meet that light. Go on,
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Speaker 1: said Redwood. After a while the driver still had his doubts.
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Speaker 1: He tried to express them, and died down to I
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Speaker 1: don't know again. At last he ventured on, here goes,
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Speaker 1: he said, and roused his machinery to motion again, followed
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Speaker 1: intently by that great white eye. To Redwood, it seened
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Speaker 1: for a long time they were no longer on earth,
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Speaker 1: but in a state of palpitating hurry through a luminous cloud.
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Speaker 1: Tf tuf tuft toof went the machine, and ever and again,
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Speaker 1: obeying I know not what nervous impulse, the driver sounded
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Speaker 1: at his horn. They passed into the welcome darkness of
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Speaker 1: a high fenced lane, and down into a hollow, and
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Speaker 1: passed the houses into that blinding stair again. Then for
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Speaker 1: a space the road ran naked across a down and
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Speaker 1: they seemed to hang throbbing in immensity. Once more, giant
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Speaker 1: weeds rose about them, A world passed. Then quite abruptly,
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Speaker 1: close upon them loomed the figure of a giant, shining
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Speaker 1: brightly where the search light caught in below and black
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Speaker 1: against the sky above. Hello, there, he cried, And stop.
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Speaker 1: There's no more road beyond, is that? Father Redwood. Redwood
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Speaker 1: stood up and gave a vague shout by way of answer,
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Speaker 1: and then Cosser was in the road beside him, gripping
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Speaker 1: both hands with both of his and pulling out of
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Speaker 1: the car. What of my son, asked Redwood. He's all right,
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Speaker 1: said Casser. They hurt nothing serious in him, and your lads, well,
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Speaker 1: all of them. Well, but we've had to make a
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Speaker 1: fight for it. The giant was saying something to the
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Speaker 1: motor driver. Redwood stood aside as the machine wheeled round,
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Speaker 1: and then suddenly Cosser vanished. Everything vanished, and he was
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Speaker 1: in absolute darkness for his face. The glare was following
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Speaker 1: the motor back through the crest of the Caston Hill.
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Speaker 1: He watched the little conveyance receding in that white halo
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Speaker 1: and had a curious effect as though it was not
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Speaker 1: moving at all, and the halo was a group of
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Speaker 1: war blasted giant elwerds flashed into gaunt, scarred gesticulations, and
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Speaker 1: was swallowed again by the night. Redwood turned to Cossar's
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Speaker 1: dim outline and clasped his hand. I had been shut
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Speaker 1: up and kept in ingorant, he said, for two whole days.
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Speaker 1: We'll find the food at them, said Cosser, obviously, thirty shots. Eh,
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Speaker 1: I come from Cadaheim. I know you do, he laughed,
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Speaker 1: with a note of biddness. I suppose he's wiping it up. Two.
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Speaker 1: Where is my son? Said Redwood? He is all right.
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Speaker 1: The giants are waiting for your message. Yes, but my son.
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Speaker 1: He passed with Cosser down a long slanting tunnel that
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Speaker 1: was lit red for a moment, then became dark, and
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Speaker 1: came out presently into the great pit of shelter the
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Speaker 1: giants had made. Redwood's first impression was of an enormous arena,
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Speaker 1: bounded by very high cliffs and with its floor greatly encumbered.
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Speaker 1: It was in darkness save for the passing reflection of
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Speaker 1: the watchmen's search lights. The whorld pepperatchually high overhead, and
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Speaker 1: for a red glow that came and went from a
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Speaker 1: distant corner where two giants worked together amidst a metallic
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Speaker 1: clangor against the sky. As the glare came about, his
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Speaker 1: eye caught the familiar outlines of the old work sheds
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Speaker 1: and play sheds, Though made for the Cossar boys. They
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Speaker 1: were hanging now, as it were, at a cliff brow,
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Speaker 1: and strangely twisted and distorted with the guns of Cadahan's bombard.
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Speaker 1: There were suggestions of huge gun and placements above there,
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Speaker 1: and nearer files of mighty cylinders that were perhaps ammunition.
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Speaker 1: All about the wide space below, the forms of great
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Speaker 1: engines and incomprehensible bulks were scattered in vague disorder. The
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Speaker 1: giants appeared and vanished among these masses, and in the
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Speaker 1: uncertain light, great shapes. They were not disproportionate to the
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Speaker 1: things amidst which they moved. Some were actively employed, some
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Speaker 1: sitting and lying as if they courted sleep, And one
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Speaker 1: near at hand, whose body was bandaged, lay on a
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Speaker 1: rough litter of pine boughs, and was certainly asleep. Redward
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Speaker 1: peered at these dim forms, his eyes went from one
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Speaker 1: stirring outline to another. Where is my son, coss Her?
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Speaker 1: Then he saw him. His son was sitting under the
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Speaker 1: shadow of a great wall of steel. He presented himself
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Speaker 1: as a black shape, recognizable only by his pose. His
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Speaker 1: features were invisible. He sat chin upon hand, as though
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Speaker 1: weary or lost in thought. Beside him, red would discover
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Speaker 1: the figure of the princess, the dark suggestion of her milly,
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Speaker 1: And then as the glow from the distant iron returned,
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Speaker 1: he saw for an instant red lid and tender, the
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Speaker 1: infinite kindliness of her shadowed face. She stood looking down
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Speaker 1: upon her lover, with her hand resting against the steel.
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Speaker 1: It seemed that she whispered to him. Redwood would have
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Speaker 1: gone towards them presently, said Cossar. First, there is your message, Yes,
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Speaker 1: said Rudwood, but he stopped. His son was now looking
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Speaker 1: up and speaking to the princess, but in too low
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Speaker 1: a tone for them to hear. Young Redwood raised his face,
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Speaker 1: and she bent down towards him, and glanced aside before
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Speaker 1: she spoke. But if we are beaten, they heard the
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Speaker 1: whispered voice of young Wudwood. She paused and the red
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Speaker 1: blaze showed her eyes bright with unshd tears. She bent
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Speaker 1: nearer him and spoke still lower. There was something so
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Speaker 1: intimate and private in their bearing, in their soft tones,
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Speaker 1: that Redwood Redward, who had thought for two whole days
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Speaker 1: of nothing but a son, fed himself intrusive. There. Abruptly
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Speaker 1: he was checked for the first time in his life.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps he realized how much more a son may be
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Speaker 1: to his father that a father can ever be to
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Speaker 1: a son. He realized the full predominance of the future
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Speaker 1: of the past. Here between these two he had no part.
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Speaker 1: His part was he turned the Cosser. In the instant
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Speaker 1: realization the riyes met. His voice was changed to the
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Speaker 1: tone of a gray resolve. I would deliver my message now,
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Speaker 1: he said. Afterwards, it will be soon enough. Then. The
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Speaker 1: pit was so enormous and so encumbered that it was
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Speaker 1: a long and torturous rude to the place from which
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Speaker 1: Redwood could speak to them all. He and Cosser followed
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Speaker 1: a steeply distanding way, the pass beneath an arch into
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Speaker 1: locking machinery, and so came into a vast, deep gangway
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Speaker 1: that ran athwart the bottom of the pit. This Gangway,
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Speaker 1: white and vacant and yet relatively narrow, conspired with everything
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Speaker 1: about it to enhance Redwood's sense of his own littleness.
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Speaker 1: It became, as it were, an excavated gorge high overhead,
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Speaker 1: separated from him by cliffs of darkness. The search lights
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Speaker 1: wheeled and blazed, and the shining shades went to and fro.
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Speaker 1: Giant voices called to one another above there, calling the
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Speaker 1: giants together to the Council of War to hear the
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Speaker 1: terms that Cataham had sent. The Gangway still inclined downward
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Speaker 1: towards black, vastnesses, towards shadows and mysteries and inconceivable things,
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Speaker 1: into which Redwood went slowly with reluctant footsteps, and Cosser
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Speaker 1: with a confidence stride. Redwood's thoughts were busy. The two
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Speaker 1: men passed into the completest darkness, and Cosser took his
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Speaker 1: companion's wrist. They're wet now, slowly perforce. Redwolf has moved
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Speaker 1: to speak. All these he says is strange, big, said Cosser,
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Speaker 1: strange and strange that it should be strange to me,
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Speaker 1: I who am, in a sense the beginning of it all.
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Speaker 1: It's he stopped wrestling with this elusive meaning and through
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Speaker 1: an unseen gesture at the cliff. I have not thought
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Speaker 1: of it before. I have been busy, and the years
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Speaker 1: have passed. But here I see it is a new generation, Cosser,
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Speaker 1: and new emotions and new needs. All this Cosser Cossa
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Speaker 1: saw now his diemed gesture to the things about them,
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Speaker 1: all this is youth. Cosser made no answers, and his
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Speaker 1: irregular footfalls was striding on. It isn't our youth, Cosser.
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Speaker 1: They are taking things over. They are beginning upon their
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Speaker 1: own emotions, their own experiences, their own way. We have
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Speaker 1: made a new world, and it isn't ours. It isn't
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Speaker 1: even sympathetic. This great place I planned it, said Cosser,
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Speaker 1: his face close. But now ah, I have given it
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Speaker 1: to my sons. Redwood could feel the loose wave of
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Speaker 1: the arm that he could not see. That is it.
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Speaker 1: We are over, almost over your message? Yes, and then
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Speaker 1: we're over. Well, of course we are out of it,
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Speaker 1: we two old men, said Cosser, with this familiar note
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Speaker 1: of sudden anger. Of course, we are obviously, each man
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Speaker 1: for his own time, and now it's their time beginning.
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Speaker 1: That's all right, excavate his gang. We do our job
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Speaker 1: and go see. This is what death is for us.
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Speaker 1: We work all of our little brains and all of
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Speaker 1: our little emotions, and then this lot begins afresh, fresh
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Speaker 1: and fresh, perfectly simple. What's the trouble? He paused to
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Speaker 1: guise Redwood to some steps, Yes, Redwood said, but one
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Speaker 1: feels he left his sentence incomplete. That is what death
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Speaker 1: is for. He heard Costa below him, insisting how else
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Speaker 1: could the thing be done? That is what death is for.
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Speaker 1: Three after devious windings, in a sense, they came out
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Speaker 1: upon a projecting ledge, from which it was possible to
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Speaker 1: see over the greater extent of the giant's pit, and
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Speaker 1: from which Redwood might make himself heard by the whole
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Speaker 1: of their assembly. The giants were already gathered below and
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Speaker 1: about him at different levels, to hear the message he
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Speaker 1: had to deliver. The eldest son of Cossers stood on
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Speaker 1: the bank of a head, watching the revelations of the searchlights,
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Speaker 1: for they feared a breach of the truth. The workers
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Speaker 1: of the great apparatus in the corner stood out clear
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Speaker 1: in their own light. They were near stripped. They turned
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Speaker 1: their faces towards redwood, but with a watchful reference over
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Speaker 1: and again to the castings that they could not leave.
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Speaker 1: He saw these nearer figures with a fluctuating indistinctness, by
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Speaker 1: lights that came and went, and the remoter ones still
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Speaker 1: less distinctly. They came from unvanished again into the depths
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Speaker 1: of great obscurities. For these giants had no more light
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Speaker 1: than they could help in the pit, that their eyes
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Speaker 1: might be ready to see effectually any attacking force that
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Speaker 1: might spring upon them out of the darkness around. Ever
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Speaker 1: and again, some chance glay would pick out and display
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Speaker 1: this group or that of tall and powerful forms, the
13:52
Speaker 1: giants from Sunderland clothed in overlapping metal plates, and the
13:55
Speaker 1: others clad thin leather, in woven rope, or in woven metal,
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Speaker 1: as their conditions had determined. They sat amidst or rested
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Speaker 1: their hands upon, or stood erect among machines and weapons
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Speaker 1: as mighty as themselves, and all their faces, as they
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Speaker 1: came and went from visible to invisible, had steadfast eyes.
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Speaker 1: He made an effort to begin, and did not do so.
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Speaker 1: Then for a moment his son's face glowed out in
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Speaker 1: a hot insurgence of the fire. His son's face looking
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Speaker 1: up to him, tender as well as strong, and at
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Speaker 1: that he found a voice to reach them all, speaking
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Speaker 1: across a gulf, as it were, to his son, I
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Speaker 1: come from Cataham, he said. He sent me to you
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Speaker 1: to tell you the terms he offers. He paused. They
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Speaker 1: are impossible terms, I know now that I see you here. Altogether,
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Speaker 1: they are impossible turns. But I brought them to you
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Speaker 1: because I wanted to see you all and my son.
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Speaker 1: Once more. I wanted to see my son tell them
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Speaker 1: the terms, said Cossar. This is what Cataham offers. He
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Speaker 1: wants you to go apart and leave his world, where
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Speaker 1: he does not know vaguely somewhere in the world, a
14:52
Speaker 1: great region is to be set apart, and you are
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Speaker 1: to make no more of the food, to have no
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Speaker 1: children of your own, to live your own way for
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Speaker 1: your own time, and then to end for ever. He stopped.
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Speaker 1: And that is all that is all. There followed a
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Speaker 1: great stillness, the darkness that veiled the giants seemed to
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Speaker 1: look thoughtfully at him. He felt a touch at his elbow,
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Speaker 1: and Cossair was holding a chair for him. A queer
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Speaker 1: fragment of Doll's furniture amidst these piled immensities, he sat
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Speaker 1: down and crossed his legs, and then put one across
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Speaker 1: the knee of the other, and clutched his boot nervously,
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Speaker 1: and felt small and self conscious and acutely visible and
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Speaker 1: obsurdly placed. Then at the sound of a voice, he
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Speaker 1: forgot himself again. You have heard, brothers, said his voice
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Speaker 1: out of the shadows. And another answered, we have heard.
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Speaker 1: And the answer, brothers to Cadahan is no. And then
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Speaker 1: there was a silence for the space of some seconds.
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Speaker 1: Then a voice said, these people are right after their lights.
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Speaker 1: That is, they have been right in killing all that
15:46
Speaker 1: grew larger than its kind, beast and plant, on all
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Speaker 1: matter of great things that arose. They were right in
15:52
Speaker 1: Tryina massacres. They are right now in saying we must
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Speaker 1: not marry our kind according to their lights. They are right.
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Speaker 1: They know it is time that we also knew that
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Speaker 1: you cannot have pigmies and giants in one world together.
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Speaker 1: Cadam Is said that again and again, clearly their world
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Speaker 1: of ours. We are not half a hundred now, said another,
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Speaker 1: And they are endless millions. So it may be, but
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Speaker 1: the thing is as I have said. Then another long silence.
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Speaker 1: Are we to die, then, God forbid? Are they no?
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Speaker 1: But that is what Catam says. He would have us
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Speaker 1: live out our lives, die one by one till only
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Speaker 1: one remains, and that one at last would die also.
16:27
Speaker 1: And they would cut down all the giant plants and weeds,
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Speaker 1: call all the giant under life, burn out the traces
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Speaker 1: of the food. Make an end to us and to
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Speaker 1: the food forever. Then the little pigmy world would be safe.
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Speaker 1: They would go on save forever, living their little pigmy lives,
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Speaker 1: doing pigmy kindnesses and pigmy cruelties each to the other.
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Speaker 1: They might even perhaps attain a sort of pigmy millennium.
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Speaker 1: Make an end to war, make an end to overpopulation,
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Speaker 1: sit down in a world wide city, to practice pigmy arts,
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Speaker 1: worshiping one another till the world begins to freeze. In
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Speaker 1: the corner, a sheet of iron fell in Thumber to
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Speaker 1: the ground. Brother, we know what we mean to do,
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Speaker 1: and a spluttering of light from the search lights. Redwood
17:04
Speaker 1: saw earnest, youthful faces, turning to his son. It is
17:07
Speaker 1: easy now to make the food. It would be easy
17:09
Speaker 1: for us to make food for all the world. You
17:11
Speaker 1: mean brother Woodwood, said a voice out of the darkness,
17:14
Speaker 1: that it is for the little people to eat the food.
17:17
Speaker 1: What else is there to do? We ought not half
17:19
Speaker 1: a hundred, and they are millions, But we held our
17:21
Speaker 1: own so far. If it is God's will, we may
17:24
Speaker 1: still hold our own. Yes, But think of the dead.
17:27
Speaker 1: Another voice took up the strain the dead. It said,
17:30
Speaker 1: think of the unborn brothers, came the voice of young Redwood.
17:34
Speaker 1: What can we do? Would fight them? And if we
17:36
Speaker 1: beat them, make them take the food. They cannot help
17:39
Speaker 1: but take the food. Now, suppose we were to resign
17:41
Speaker 1: our heritage and do this folly that Cadahan suggests. Suppose
17:45
Speaker 1: we could suppose we give up this great thing that
17:47
Speaker 1: stirs within us, repudiate this thing our fathers did for us,
17:51
Speaker 1: that you father did for us, and pass. When our
17:54
Speaker 1: time has come into decay and nothingness, What then will
17:57
Speaker 1: this little world of theirs be as it was before?
18:00
Speaker 1: They might fight against greatness in us, who are the
18:02
Speaker 1: children of men. But can they conquer? Even if they
18:05
Speaker 1: should destroy us every one, what then would it save them? No,
18:09
Speaker 1: For greatness is abroad, not only in us, not only
18:11
Speaker 1: in the food, but in the purpose of all things.
18:14
Speaker 1: It is in the nature of all things. It is
18:16
Speaker 1: part of space and time to grow, and still to
18:19
Speaker 1: grow from first to last. That is being. That is
18:21
Speaker 1: the law of life. What the law can there be
18:24
Speaker 1: to help others to grow? It is still to grow
18:27
Speaker 1: unless we help them to fail. They will fight hard
18:30
Speaker 1: to overcome us, said a voice, and another. What of
18:32
Speaker 1: that they will fight? Said young Redwood. If we refuse
18:35
Speaker 1: these terms, I doubt not they will fight. Indeed, I
18:38
Speaker 1: hope they will be open and fight. If after all
18:40
Speaker 1: they offer peace, it will be only the better to
18:42
Speaker 1: catch us unawares. Make no mistakes, brothers. In some way
18:46
Speaker 1: or other, they will fight. The war has begun, and
18:48
Speaker 1: we must fight to the end. Lest we are wise,
18:51
Speaker 1: we may find presently we have lived only to make
18:53
Speaker 1: them better weapons against our children and our kind. This
18:57
Speaker 1: so far has been only the dawn of battle. All
18:59
Speaker 1: our lies will be a battle. Some of us will
19:01
Speaker 1: be killed in battle, and some of us will be waylaid.
19:04
Speaker 1: There is no easy victory, no victory whatever that is
19:06
Speaker 1: not more than half to feed for us. Be sure
19:09
Speaker 1: of that? What of that? If only we keep a foothold,
19:12
Speaker 1: if only we leave behind us a growing host to
19:14
Speaker 1: fight when we are gone, and tomorrow we will scatter
19:18
Speaker 1: the food. We will saturate the world with the food.
19:21
Speaker 1: Suppose they come to terms. Our terms are the food.
19:24
Speaker 1: It is not as though little and great could live
19:26
Speaker 1: together in any perfection or of compromise. It is one
19:29
Speaker 1: thing or the other wrought right have parents to say,
19:32
Speaker 1: my child shall have no light? But the light I
19:34
Speaker 1: have had shall grow no greater than the greatness to
19:36
Speaker 1: which I have grown. Do I speak for you, brothers,
19:39
Speaker 1: assenting murmurs, answered him. And to the children who will
19:42
Speaker 1: be women, as well as to the children who will
19:44
Speaker 1: be men, said a voice from the darkness, even more
19:47
Speaker 1: so to be mothers of a near race. But for
19:49
Speaker 1: the next generation there must be great and little, said Redwood,
19:52
Speaker 1: with his eyes on his son's face. For many generations,
19:55
Speaker 1: and the little will hamp of the great, and the
19:57
Speaker 1: great press upon the little. So it must need be father.
20:01
Speaker 1: There will be conflict, endless conflict, endless misunderstanding. All life
20:05
Speaker 1: is that great and little cannot understand one another. But
20:08
Speaker 1: in every child born a man, Father Redwood lurk some
20:11
Speaker 1: seeds of greatness, waiting for the food. That I am
20:14
Speaker 1: to go to Cadahan again and tell him you will
20:17
Speaker 1: stay with us, Father Redwood. Our answer goes to Cadaam
20:20
Speaker 1: at dam. He says that he will fight, So be it,
20:23
Speaker 1: said young Woodwood, and his brethren murmured assent. The iron
20:26
Speaker 1: weights cried a voice, and the two giants who were
20:29
Speaker 1: working in the corner began a rhythmic hammering that made
20:31
Speaker 1: a mighty music to the scene. The metal glowed out
20:34
Speaker 1: far more brightly than it had done before, and gave
20:36
Speaker 1: Redwood a clearer view of the encampment that had yet
20:39
Speaker 1: come to him. He saw the oblong space to its
20:42
Speaker 1: full extent, with the great engines of warfare ranged ready
20:45
Speaker 1: to hand. Beyond at a higher level, the house of
20:48
Speaker 1: the Cossars stood buff him, with the young giants, huge
20:51
Speaker 1: and beautiful, glittering in their mail amidst the preparations for
20:54
Speaker 1: the morrow. The sight of them lifted his heart. They
20:56
Speaker 1: were so easily powerful, they were so tall and gracious,
21:00
Speaker 1: they were so steadfast in the movements. There was his
21:02
Speaker 1: son amongst them, and for the first of all giant women,
21:05
Speaker 1: the princess. There leapt into his mind the oddest contrast,
21:09
Speaker 1: a memory of Bensington, very bright and little Bensington, with
21:12
Speaker 1: his hand amidst the soft breast of feathers of that
21:14
Speaker 1: first great chick, standing in that conventionally furnished room of his,
21:18
Speaker 1: peering over his spectacles dubiously as cousin Jane banged the door.
21:22
Speaker 1: It all happened in a yesterday of one and twenty years,
21:25
Speaker 1: that suddenly a strange doubt took hold of him, that
21:27
Speaker 1: this place, in prison greatness were but the texture of
21:30
Speaker 1: a dream that he was dreaming, and would in an
21:32
Speaker 1: instant wake to find himself in his study again, the
21:34
Speaker 1: giants slaughtered, the food suppressed, and himself a prisoner locked in.
21:38
Speaker 1: What else indeed was life, but that always to be
21:41
Speaker 1: a prisoner locked in? This was the culmination and end
21:44
Speaker 1: of his dream. He would wake, through bloodshed and battle,
21:46
Speaker 1: to find his food, the most foolish of fancies, and
21:49
Speaker 1: his hopes and faith of a greater world to come,
21:52
Speaker 1: no more than the colored film upon a pool of
21:54
Speaker 1: bottomless decay, little less invincible. So strong and deep was
21:58
Speaker 1: this wave despondency, this suggestion of impending disillusionment, that he
22:03
Speaker 1: started to his feet. He stood and pressed his clenched
22:05
Speaker 1: fists into his eyes, and so for a moment remained
22:08
Speaker 1: feering to open them again and see, lest the dream
22:11
Speaker 1: should already have passed away. The voice of the giant
22:14
Speaker 1: children spoke to one another, and unatoned to that clangorous
22:17
Speaker 1: melody of the smiths. His tide of doubt ed. He
22:20
Speaker 1: heard the giant voices, he heard their movements about him.
22:22
Speaker 1: Still it was real, surely it was real, as real
22:25
Speaker 1: as spiteful acts, more real. For these great things, it
22:28
Speaker 1: may be, are the coming things. And the littleness, bestiality,
22:32
Speaker 1: and infirmity of men are the things that go. He
22:35
Speaker 1: opened his eyes. Dune, cried one of the two iron workers,
22:38
Speaker 1: and they flung their hammers down. A voice sounded above.
22:41
Speaker 1: The son of Cosser, standing on the great embankment, had
22:43
Speaker 1: turned and was now speaking to them all. It is
22:46
Speaker 1: not that we would oust the little people from the world,
22:48
Speaker 1: he said, in order that we, who are no more
22:51
Speaker 1: than one step upwards from their littleness, may hold their
22:53
Speaker 1: world forever. It is the step we fight for, and
22:56
Speaker 1: not ourselves. We are here, brothers, to what end, to
22:59
Speaker 1: serve the spirit and the purpose that has been breathed
23:01
Speaker 1: into our lives. We fight not for ourselves, for we
23:04
Speaker 1: are but the momentary hands and eyes of the life
23:06
Speaker 1: of the world. So you, father Redwood, taught us through us,
23:10
Speaker 1: and through the little folk of the spirit looks and
23:12
Speaker 1: learns form us. Weary word and birth and act. It
23:16
Speaker 1: must pass distill greater lives. The earth is no resting place.
23:19
Speaker 1: This earth is no playing place. Else indeed, we might
23:22
Speaker 1: put our throats to the little people's knife, having no
23:25
Speaker 1: greater right to live than they, and they in turn
23:27
Speaker 1: might yield to the ants and vermin. We fight not
23:30
Speaker 1: for ourselves but for growth, growth that grows on forever tomorrow,
23:34
Speaker 1: whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us.
23:37
Speaker 1: This is the law of the Spirit. For evermore to grow,
23:39
Speaker 1: according to the will of God, to grow out of
23:41
Speaker 1: these cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and darknesses,
23:45
Speaker 1: into greatness and the light. Greater, he said, speaking with
23:48
Speaker 1: slow debrellation, Greater, my brothers, and then still greater, to grow,
23:52
Speaker 1: and again to grow, to grow at last into the
23:55
Speaker 1: fellowship and under study of God, growing till the earth
23:58
Speaker 1: is no more than a footstool, till the Spirit shall
24:01
Speaker 1: have driven fear into nothingness and spread. He swung his
24:04
Speaker 1: arm heavenward. There his voice ceased, the white glare of
24:08
Speaker 1: one of those searchlights wheeled about, and for a moment
24:11
Speaker 1: fell upon him, standing out gigantic, with its hand appraised
24:14
Speaker 1: against the sky. For one instance he shone, looking up
24:18
Speaker 1: fearlessly into the starry depths, mail clad, young and strong, resolute,
24:22
Speaker 1: and still. Then the light had passed, and he was
24:24
Speaker 1: no more than a great black outline against the starry sky,
24:28
Speaker 1: a great black outline that threatened, with one mighty gesture,
24:31
Speaker 1: the firmament of Heaven and all its multitude of stars.
24:36
Speaker 1: End of Book three, Chapter five. End of the Foot
24:41
Speaker 1: of the Gods and How It Came to Earth by H. G. Wells,
24:46
Speaker 1: recorded by Alyxe to Lander, Davis, California, w w W
24:51
Speaker 1: dot Alyxetlander dot com