Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Men Like Gods Book 1 Chapter 6 - Some Earthly Criticisms

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Men Like Gods Book 1 Chapter 6 - Some Earthly Criticisms · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section six of Men Like Gods by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Men Like Gods by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter six, Some Earthly Criticisms One. At times
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  Speaker 1: during that memorable afternoon and evening, it seemed to mister
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  Speaker 1: Barnstable that he was involved in nothing more remarkable than
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  Speaker 1: an extraordinary dialogue about government and history, a dialogue that had,
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  Speaker 1: in some inexplicable way become spectacular. It was as if
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  Speaker 1: all this was happening only in his mind, and then
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  Speaker 1: the absolute reality of his adventure would return to him
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  Speaker 1: with overwhelming power, and his intellectual interest fay to inattention
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  Speaker 1: in the astounding strangeness of his position. In these latter phases,
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  Speaker 1: he would find his gaze wandering from face to face
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  Speaker 1: of the Utopians who surrounded him, resting for a time
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  Speaker 1: on some exquisite detail of the architecture of the building,
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  Speaker 1: and then coming back to these divining, graceful forms. Then,
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  Speaker 1: incredulously he would revert to his fellow earthlings, not one
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  Speaker 1: of these utopian faces, but was as candid, earnest, and
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  Speaker 1: beautiful as the angelic faces of an Italian painting. One
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  Speaker 1: woman was strangely like Michael Angelo's delphic sybyl They sat
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  Speaker 1: in easy attitudes, men and women together for the most part,
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  Speaker 1: concentrated on the discussion. But every now and then mister
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  Speaker 1: Barnstable would meet the direct scrutiny of a pair of
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  Speaker 1: friendly eyes, or find some Utopian face intent upon the
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  Speaker 1: costume of Lady Stella, or the eye glass of mister mush.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Barnstable's first impression of the Utopians had been that
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  Speaker 1: they were all young people. Now he perceived that many
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  Speaker 1: of these faces had ay of vigorous maturity. None showed
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  Speaker 1: any of the distinctive marks of age as this World
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  Speaker 1: notes them. But both Earthred and Lion had lines of
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  Speaker 1: experience about eyes and lips and brow. The effect of
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  Speaker 1: these people upon mister Barnstable mingled stupefaction with familiarity. In
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  Speaker 1: the strangest way, he had a feeling that he had
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  Speaker 1: always known that such a race could exist, that this
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  Speaker 1: knowledge had supplied the implicit standard of a thousand judgments
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  Speaker 1: upon human affairs. And at the same time he was
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  Speaker 1: astonished to the pitch of increduity to find himself in
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  Speaker 1: the same world with them. They were at once normal
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  Speaker 1: and wonderful in comparison with himself and his companions, who were,
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  Speaker 1: on their part, at the same time queer and perfectly
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  Speaker 1: matter of fact. And together with a strong desire to
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  Speaker 1: become friendly and intimate with these fine and gracious persons,
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  Speaker 1: to give himself to them, and to associate them with
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  Speaker 1: himself by service and reciprocal acts, there was an awe
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  Speaker 1: and fear of them that made him shrink from contact
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  Speaker 1: with them and quiver at their touch. He desired their
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  Speaker 1: personal recognition of himself as a fellow and companion so
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  Speaker 1: greatly that his sense of his own ungraciousness and unworthiness
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  Speaker 1: overwhelmed him. He wanted to bow down before them. Beneath
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  Speaker 1: all the light and loveliness of things about him lurked
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  Speaker 1: the intolerable premonition of his ultimate rejection from this new world.
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  Speaker 1: So great was the impression made by the Utopians upon
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  Speaker 1: mister Barnstable, so entirely did he yield himself up to
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  Speaker 1: his joyful acceptance of their grace and physical splendor, that
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  Speaker 1: for a time he had no attention left over to
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  Speaker 1: note how different from his own were the reactions of
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  Speaker 1: several of his earthly companions. The aloofness of the Utopians
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  Speaker 1: from the queerness, grotesqueness and cruelty of normal earthly life
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  Speaker 1: made him ready for the most uncritical approval of their
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  Speaker 1: institutions and ways of life. It was the behavior Father
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  Speaker 1: Amerton which first awakened him to the fact that it
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  Speaker 1: was possible to disapprove of these wonderful people very highly,
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  Speaker 1: and to display a very considerable hostility to them. At first,
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  Speaker 1: Father Amerton had kept a round faced, round eyed wonder
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  Speaker 1: above his round collar. He had shown a disposition to
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  Speaker 1: give the lead to anyone who chose to take it,
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  Speaker 1: and he had said not a word until the naked
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  Speaker 1: beauty of dead Green Lake had surprised him into an
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  Speaker 1: expression of unclerical appreciation. But during the journey to the lakeside,
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  Speaker 1: and the meal and the opening arrangements of the conference,
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  Speaker 1: there was a reaction, and this first naive and deferential
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  Speaker 1: astonishment gave place to an attitude of resistance and hostility.
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  Speaker 1: It was as if this new world, which had begun
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  Speaker 1: by being a spectacle, had taken on the quality of
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  Speaker 1: a proposition which he felt he had either to accept
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  Speaker 1: or confute. Perhaps it was that the habit of mind
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  Speaker 1: of a public censor was too strong for him, and
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  Speaker 1: that he could not feel normal again until he began
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  Speaker 1: to condemn. Perhaps he was really shocked and distressed by
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  Speaker 1: the virtual nudity of these lovely bodies about him. But
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  Speaker 1: he began presently to make queer grunts and coughs, to
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  Speaker 1: mutter to himself, and to betray an increasing incapacity to
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  Speaker 1: keep still. He broke out first into an interruption when
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  Speaker 1: the question of population was raised. For a little while
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  Speaker 1: his intelligence prevailed over this emotional stir when the profit
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  Speaker 1: of the wheel was discussed, But then his gathering preoccupations
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  Speaker 1: resumed their sway. I must speak out, mister Barnstable, heard him, mutter,
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  Speaker 1: I must speak out now. Suddenly he began to ask questions.
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  Speaker 1: There are some things I want to have clear, he said,
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  Speaker 1: I want to know what moral state this so called
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  Speaker 1: utopia is in. Excuse me, He got up. He stood
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  Speaker 1: with wavering hands, unable for a moment to begin. Then
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  Speaker 1: he went to the end of the row of seats
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  Speaker 1: and placed himself so that his hands could rest on
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  Speaker 1: the back of a seat. He passed his fingers through
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  Speaker 1: his hair, and he seemed to be inhaling deeply. An
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  Speaker 1: unwonted animation came into his face, which reddened and began
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  Speaker 1: to shine. A horrible suspicion crossed the mind of mister
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  Speaker 1: Barnstable that so it was he must stand when he
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  Speaker 1: began those weekly sermons of his, those fearless denunciations of
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  Speaker 1: almost everything in the Church of Saint Barnabas and the West.
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  Speaker 1: The suspicion deepened to a still more horrible certainty. Friends,
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  Speaker 1: brothers of this new world, I have certain things to
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  Speaker 1: say to you that I cannot delay saying. I want
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  Speaker 1: to ask you some soul searching questions. I want to
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  Speaker 1: deal plainly with you about some plain and simple but
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  Speaker 1: very fundamental matters. I want to put things to you
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  Speaker 1: frankly and as man to man, not being mealy mouthed
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  Speaker 1: about urgent, if delicate things. Let me come without party
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  Speaker 1: to what I have to say. I want to ask
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  Speaker 1: you if, in this so called state of utopia, you
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  Speaker 1: still have and respect and honor the most sacred thing
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  Speaker 1: in social life. Do you still respect the marriage bond?
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  Speaker 1: He paused, and in the pause the utopian reply came
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  Speaker 1: through to mister Barnstable. In utopia there are no bonds.
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  Speaker 1: But Father Ayrton was not asking questions with any desire
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  Speaker 1: for answers. He was asking questions pulpit fashion. I want
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  Speaker 1: to know, he was mooing out. If that holy union
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  Speaker 1: revealed to our first parents in the garden of Eden
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  Speaker 1: holds good here. If that sanctified life long association of
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  Speaker 1: one man and one woman in good fortune and ill fortune,
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  Speaker 1: excluding every other sort of intimacy, is the rule of
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  Speaker 1: your lives? I want to know. But he doesn't want
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  Speaker 1: to know. Came a utopian intervention. If that shielded and
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  Speaker 1: guarded dual purity. Mister Burley raised a long white hand,
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  Speaker 1: Father Emerton. He protested, Please, the hand of mister Burley
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  Speaker 1: was a potent hand that might still wave towards preferment.
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  Speaker 1: Few things under heaven could stop Father Emerton when he
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  Speaker 1: was once launched upon one of his soul storms. But
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  Speaker 1: the hand of mister Burley was among such things. Has
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  Speaker 1: followed another still more precious gift, and been cast aside
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  Speaker 1: here and utterly rejected of men. What is it, mister Burley?
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  Speaker 1: I wish you would not press this matter further just
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  Speaker 1: at present, Father Emerton, until we have learnt a little more.
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  Speaker 1: Institutions are manifestly very different here, even the institution of
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  Speaker 1: marriage may be different. The preacher's face lowered. Mister Burley.
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  Speaker 1: He said, I must, if my suspicions are right, I
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  Speaker 1: want to strip this world forthwith of its hectic preference
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  Speaker 1: to a sort of health and virtue. Not much stripping required,
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  Speaker 1: said mister Birdie chauffeur, in a very audible aside. A
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  Speaker 1: certain testiness became evident in mister Birley's voice. Then ask questions,
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  Speaker 1: he said, ask questions. Don't oerrate, please, they don't want
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  Speaker 1: us to oerrate. I've asked my question, said Father Amerton, sulkily,
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  Speaker 1: with a rhetorical glared at earthred, and remained standing. The
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  Speaker 1: answer came clear and explicit. In Utopia, there was no
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  Speaker 1: compulsion for men and women to go about in indissoluble pairs.
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  Speaker 1: For most Utopians, that we be inconvenient. Very often men
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  Speaker 1: and women whose work brought them closely together were lovers
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  Speaker 1: and kept very much together, as Ardent and green Lake
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  Speaker 1: had done, but they were not obliged to do that.
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  Speaker 1: There had not always been this freedom. In the old
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  Speaker 1: crowded days of conflict, and especially among the agricultural workers
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  Speaker 1: and employed people of Utopia, men and women who had
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  Speaker 1: been lovers were bound together under severe penalties for life.
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  Speaker 1: They lived together in a small home, which the woman
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  Speaker 1: kept in order for the man. She was his servant,
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  Speaker 1: and bore him as many children as possible, while he
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  Speaker 1: got food for them. The children were desired, because they
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  Speaker 1: were soon helpful on the land or as wage earners.
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  Speaker 1: But the necessities that had subjugated women to that sort
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  Speaker 1: of pairing had passed away. People paired, indeed with their
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  Speaker 1: chosen mates, but they did so by an inner necessity,
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  Speaker 1: and not by any outward compulsion. Father Amerton had listened
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  Speaker 1: with ill concealed impatience. Now he jumped with, then I
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  Speaker 1: was right, and you have abolished the family. His finger
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  Speaker 1: pointed at earthrid and made it almost a personal accusation. No,
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  Speaker 1: Utopia had not abolished the family. It had enlarged and
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  Speaker 1: glorified the family until it embraced the whole world. Long ago,
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  Speaker 1: that prophet of the Weald, whom Father Amberton seemed to respect,
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  Speaker 1: had preached that very enlargement of the ancient narrowness of home.
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  Speaker 1: They had told him while he preached that his mother
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  Speaker 1: and his brethren stood without and claimed his attention, but
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  Speaker 1: he would not go to them. He had turned to
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  Speaker 1: the crowd that listened to his words. Behold, my mother
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  Speaker 1: and my brethren. Father Amerton slapped the seat back in
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  Speaker 1: front of him, loudly and startlingly. A quibble, he cried,
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  Speaker 1: A quibble. Satan too can quote the scriptures. It was
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  Speaker 1: clear to mister Barnstable that Father Amerton was not in
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  Speaker 1: complete control of himself. He was frightened by what he
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  Speaker 1: was doing, and yet impelled to do it. He was
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  Speaker 1: too excited to think clearly or control his voice properly,
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  Speaker 1: so that he shouted and boomed in the wildest way.
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  Speaker 1: He was letting himself go, and trusting to the habits
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  Speaker 1: of the pulpit of Saint Barnabas to bring him through.
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  Speaker 1: I perceive now how you stand. Only too well do
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  Speaker 1: I perceive how you stand? From the outset. I guessed
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  Speaker 1: how things were with you. I waited, I waited to
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  Speaker 1: be perfectly sure before I bore my testimony. But it
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  Speaker 1: speaks for itself. The shamelessness of your costume, the licentious
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  Speaker 1: freedom of your manners, young men and women smiling, joining hands,
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  Speaker 1: near to caressing when averted eyes. Averted eyes are the
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  Speaker 1: least tribute you could pay to modesty. And this vile
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  Speaker 1: talk of lover's loving without bonds or blessings, without rules
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  Speaker 1: or restraint, what does it mean? Whither does it lead?
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  Speaker 1: Do not imagine? Because I am a priest, a man
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  Speaker 1: pure and virginal in spite of great temptations. Do not
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  Speaker 1: imagine that I do not understand? Have I no vision
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  Speaker 1: of the secret places of the heart. Do not the
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  Speaker 1: wounded sinners, the broken potschards, creaked to me with their
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  Speaker 1: pitiful confessions. And I will tell you plainly, whither you
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  Speaker 1: go and how you stand. This so called freedom of
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  Speaker 1: yours is nothing but license. Your so called utopia, I
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  Speaker 1: see plainly, is nothing but a hell of unbridled indulgence.
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  Speaker 1: Unbridled indulgence. Mister Burley held up a protesting hand, but
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  Speaker 1: Father Amberton's eloquence soared over the obstruction. He beat upon
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  Speaker 1: the back of the sea before him. I will bear
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  Speaker 1: my witness, he shouted. I will bear my witness. I
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  Speaker 1: will make no bones about it. I refuse to mince matters.
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  Speaker 1: I tell you you are all living in promiscuity. That
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  Speaker 1: is the word for it, in animal promiscuity, in beast
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  Speaker 1: your promiscuity. Mister Burley had sprung to his feet. He
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  Speaker 1: was holding up his two hands and motion the London
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  Speaker 1: bow energies to sit down. No, no, he cried, You
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  Speaker 1: must stop, mister Emerton, really, you must stop your being insulting.
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  Speaker 1: You do not understand. Sit down, please, I insist, sit
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  Speaker 1: down and hold your peace, said a very clear voice,
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  Speaker 1: or you will be taken away. Something meet Father Emerton,
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  Speaker 1: aware of a still figure at his elbow. He met
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  Speaker 1: the eyes of a life young man who was scrutinizing
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  Speaker 1: his bild as a portrait painter might scrutinize a new sitter.
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  Speaker 1: There was no thread in his bearing. He stood quite still,
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  Speaker 1: and yet his appearance through an extraordinary quality of evanescence.
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  Speaker 1: About Father Amerton. The great preacher's voice died in his throat.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Burley's bland voice was lifted to avert a conflict.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Serpentine, sir, I appeal to you and apologize. He
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  Speaker 1: is not fully responsible. We others regret the interruption, the incident.
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  Speaker 1: I pray you please do not take him away. Whatever
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  Speaker 1: taking away may mean I will answer personally for his
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  Speaker 1: good behavior. Do set down, mister Emerton, please now, or
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  Speaker 1: I shall wash my hands of the whole business. Father
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  Speaker 1: Amerton hesitated. My time will come, he said, and looked
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  Speaker 1: the young man in the eyes for a moment, and
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  Speaker 1: then went back to his seat. Erthred spoke quietly and clearly.
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  Speaker 1: You Earthlings are difficult guests to entertain. This is not
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  Speaker 1: all manifestly. This man's mind is very unclean. His sexual
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  Speaker 1: imagination is evidently inflamed and diseased. He is angry and
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  Speaker 1: anxious to insult and wound, and his noises are terrific.
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  Speaker 1: Tomorrow he must be examined and dealt with. How said
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  Speaker 1: Father Emerton, his round face suddenly gray. How do you
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  Speaker 1: mean dealt with? Please do not talk, said mister Burley.
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  Speaker 1: Please do not talk any more. You have done quite
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  Speaker 1: enough mischief For the time. The incident seemed at an end,
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  Speaker 1: but it had left a queer, little tinge of fear
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  Speaker 1: in mister Barnstable's heart. These Utopians were very gentle mannered
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  Speaker 1: and gracious people, indeed, but just for a moment, the
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  Speaker 1: hand of power had seemed to hover over the Earthling party.
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  Speaker 1: Sunlight and beauty were all about the visitors. Nevertheless, they
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  Speaker 1: were strangers, and quite helpless, strangers in an unknown world.
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  Speaker 1: The Utopian faces were kindly, and their eyes curious and
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  Speaker 1: in a manner friendly, but much more observant than friendly.
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  Speaker 1: It was as if they looked across some impassable gulf
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  Speaker 1: of difference. And then mister Barnstable, in the midst of
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  Speaker 1: his distress, met the brown eyes of likeness, and they
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  Speaker 1: were kindlier than the eyes of the other Utopians. She
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  Speaker 1: at least understood the fear that had come to him,
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  Speaker 1: he felt, and she was willing to reassure him and
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  Speaker 1: be his friend. Mister Barnstable looked at her feeling for
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  Speaker 1: the moment, much as a stray dog might do, who
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  Speaker 1: approaches a doubtfully amiable group and gets a friendly glance
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  Speaker 1: and a greeting two. Another mind that was also in
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  Speaker 1: active resistance to Utopia was that of mister Freddie Mush.
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  Speaker 1: He had no quarrel, indeed with the religion or morals
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  Speaker 1: or social organization of Utopia. He had long since learnt
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  Speaker 1: that no gentleman of serious esthetic pretensions betrays any interest
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  Speaker 1: whatever in such matters. His perceptions were by hypothesis too
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  Speaker 1: fine for them. But presently he made it clear that
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  Speaker 1: there had been something very ancient and beautiful called the
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  Speaker 1: balance of nature, which the scientific methods of Utopia had destroyed.
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  Speaker 1: What this balance of nature of his was, and how
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  Speaker 1: it worked on earth, neither the Utopians nor mister Barnstable
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  Speaker 1: were able to understand very clearly. Under cross examination, mister
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  Speaker 1: Mush grew pink and restive, and his eyeglass flashed defensively.
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  Speaker 1: I hold by the swallows, he repeated. If you can't
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  Speaker 1: see my point about that, I don't know what else
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  Speaker 1: I can say. He began with the fact and reverted
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  Speaker 1: to the fact that there were no swallows to be
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  Speaker 1: seen in Utopia, and there were no swallows to be
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  Speaker 1: seen in Utopia because there were no gnats nor midges.
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  Speaker 1: There had been an enormous deliberation reduction of insect life
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  Speaker 1: in Utopia, and that had seriously affected every sort of
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  Speaker 1: creature that was directly or indirectly depended upon insect life.
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  Speaker 1: So soon as the new state of affairs was securely
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  Speaker 1: established in Utopia and the educational state working, the attention
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  Speaker 1: of the Utopian community had been given to the long
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  Speaker 1: cherished idea of a systematic extermination of tiresome, mischievous species.
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  Speaker 1: A careful inquiry was made into the harmfulness and the
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  Speaker 1: possibility of eliminating the housefly, for example, wasps and hornets,
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  Speaker 1: various species of mice and rats, rabbits, stinging nettles. Ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand species from disease germ t. Rhinoceros and hyena were
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  Speaker 1: put upon their trial. Every species found was given an
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  Speaker 1: advocate of each. It was asked, what good is it?
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  Speaker 1: What harm does it do? How can it be extirpated,
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  Speaker 1: what else may go with it? If it goes, is
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  Speaker 1: it worth while wiping it out of existence? Or can
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  Speaker 1: it be mitigated and retained? And even when the verdict
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  Speaker 1: was death, final and complete, Utopia set about the business
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  Speaker 1: of extermination with great caution. A reserve would be kept,
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  Speaker 1: and was in many cases still being kept in some
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  Speaker 1: secure isolation. Of every species condemned, most infectious and contagious
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  Speaker 1: fevers had been completely stamped out, Some had gone very easily,
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  Speaker 1: Some had only been driven out of human life by
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  Speaker 1: proclaiming a war and subjecting the whole population to discipline.
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  Speaker 1: Many internal and external parasites of man and animals had
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  Speaker 1: also been got rid of completely. And further, there had
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  Speaker 1: been a great cleansing of the world from noxious insects,
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  Speaker 1: from weeds and vermin and hostile beasts. The mosquito had gone,
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  Speaker 1: the house fly, the blow fly, and indeed a great
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  Speaker 1: multitude of flies had gone. They had been driven out
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  Speaker 1: of life by campaigns involving an immense effort and extending
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  Speaker 1: over many generations. It had been infinitely more easy to
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  Speaker 1: get rid of such big annoyances as the hyena and
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  Speaker 1: the wolf than to abolish these smaller pests. The attack
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  Speaker 1: upon the flies had involved the virtual rebuilding of a
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  Speaker 1: large proportion of utopian houses and a minute cleansing of
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  Speaker 1: them all throughout the planet. The question of what else
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: would go if a certain species went was one of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the most subtle that Utopia had to face. Certain insects,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: for example, were destructive and offensive. Grubs in the opening
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: stage of their lives were evil as caterpillar or pupa,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and then became either beautiful in themselves or necessary to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the fertilization of some useful or exquisite flowers. Others, offensive
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: in themselves, were a necessary, irreplaceable food to pleasant and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: desirable creatures. It was not true that swallows had gone
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: from Utopia, but they had become extremely rare. And rare
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: too were a number of little insectivorous birds, the flycatcher,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: for example, that harlequin of the air. But they had
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: not died out altogether. The extermination of insects had not
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: gone to that length. Sufficient species had remained to make
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: some districts still habitable for these delightful birds. Many otherwise
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: obnoxious plants were a convenient source of chemically complex substances
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that were still costly or tedious to make synthetically, and
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: so had kept a restricted place in life. Plants and flowers,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: always simpler and more plastic in the hands of the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: breeder and hybridizer than animals, had been enormously changed in Utopia.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Our earthlings were to find a hundred sorts of foliage
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and of graceful and scented blossoms that were altogether strange
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to them. Plants, mister Barnstable Learnt had been trained in
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: bread to make new and unprecedented secretions, waxes, gums, essential
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: oils in the like of the most desirable quality. There
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: had been much befriending and taming of big animals. The
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: larger carnivora, combed and cleaned, reduced to a milk dietary,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: emasculated in spirit, and altogether bee catted were pets and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: ornaments in Utopia. The almost extinct elephant had increased again,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and Utopia had saved her giraffes. The brown bear had
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: always been disposed of sweets and vegetarianism, and had greatly
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: improved in intelligence. The dog had given up barking and
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: was comparatively rare. Sporting dogs were not used, nor small
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: pet animals. Horses mister Barnstable did not see, but as
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: he was a very modern urban type, he did not
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: miss them very much, and he did not ask any
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: questions about them. While he was actually in Utopia, he
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: never found out whether they had or had not become extinct.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: As he heard on his first afternoon in that world,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: of this revision and editing, this weeding and cultivation of
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the kingdoms of nature by mankind, it seemed to him
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: to be the most natural and necessary phase in human history.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: After all, he said to himself, it was a good
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: invention to say that man was created a gardener, and
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: now man was weeding and cultivating his own strain. The
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Utopians told of eugenic beginnings, of a new and surer
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: decision in the choice of parents, of an increasing certainty
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: in the science of heredity. And as mister Barnstable contrasted
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the firm, clear beauty of face and limb that every
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: utopian displayed with the carelessly assembled features and bodily disproportions
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of his earthly associates, he realized that already, with but
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: three thousand years or so of advantage, these utopians were
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: passing beyond man towards a nobler humanity. They were becoming
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: different in kind. Three they were different in kind. As
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the questions and explanations and exchanges of that afternoon went on,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: it became more and more evident to mister Barnstable that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the difference of their bodies was as nothing to the
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: differences of their minds innately better, to begin with, the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: minds of these children of Light had grown up uninjured
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: by any such tremendous frictions, concealments, ambiguities, and ignorances as
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: crippled the growing mind of an earthling. They were clear,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and frank and direct. They had never developed that defensive
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: suspicion of the teacher that resistance to instruction, which is
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the natural response to teaching, that is half aggression. They
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: were beautifully unwary in their communications. The ironies, concealments, insincerities, vanities,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and pretensions of earthly conversation seemed unknown to them. Mister
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Barnstable found this mental nakedness of theirs as sweet and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: refreshing as the mountain air he was breathing. It amazed
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: him that they could be so patient and lucid with
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: being so underbred. Underbred was the word he used in
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: his mind. Himself, he felt the most underbred of all.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: He was afraid of these Utopians, snobbish and abject before them,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: he was like a mannerless, earthly lout in a drawing room,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and he was bitterly ashamed of his own objection. All
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the other earthlings, except mister Burley and Lady Stella, betrayed
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the defensive spite of consciously inferior creatures struggling against that consciousness.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Like Father Amerton, mister Burley Chauffeur was evidently greatly shocked
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and disturbed by the unclothed condition of the Utopians. His
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: feelings expressed themselves by gestures, grimaces, and an occasional sarcastic
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: comet such as I don't think or what oh. These
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: he addressed for the most part to mister Barnstable, for whom,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: as the owner of a very little old car, he
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: evidently mingled feelings of profound contempt and social fellowship. He
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: would also direct mister Barnstable's attention to anything that he
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: considered remarkable in bearing or gesture by means of a
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: peculiar stare and grimace combined with raised eyebrows. He had
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: a way of pointing with his mouth, and knows that
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: mister Barnstable, under more normal circumstances might have found entertaining.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Lady Stella, who had impressed mister Barnstable at first as
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: a very great lady of the modern type, he was
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: now beginning to feel was on her defense and becoming
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: rather too ladylike. Mister Burley, however, retained a certain aristocratic sublimity.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: He had been a great man on earth for all
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: his life, and it was evident that he saw no
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: reason why he should not be accepted as a great
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: man in utopia. On earth, he had done little and
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: had been intelligently receptive, with the happiest results that alert,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: questioning mind of his, free of all persuasions, convictions, or
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: revolutionary desires, fell with the utmost ease into the pose
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: of a distinguished person inspecting, in a sympathetic but entirely
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: noncommittal matter, the institutions of an alien state do me.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: That engaging phrase laced his conversation. The evening was drawing
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: on the clear utopian sky was glowing with the gold
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of sunset, and a towering massive cloud above the lake
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: was fading from pink to a dark purple. When mister
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Rupert Catskill imposed himself upon mister Barnstable's attention, he was
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: fretting in his place. I have something to say, he said,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I have something to say. Presently. He jumped up and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: walked to the center of the semicircle from which mister
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Burley had spoken earlier in the afternoon, mister Serpentine, he said,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: mister Burley, there are a few things I should be
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: glad to say, if you can give me this opportunity
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of saying them. Four. He took off his gray top hat,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: went back and placed it on his seat, and returned
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: to the center of the apse. He put back his
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: coat tails, rested his hands on his hips, thrust his
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: head forward, regarded his audience for a moment with an
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: expression half cunning, half defiant, muttered something inaudible, and began
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: His opening was not prepossessing. There was some slight impediment
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: in his speech, the little brother of a lisp against
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: which his voice beat gutturally. His first few sentences had
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: an effect of being jerked out by unsteady efforts. Then
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: it became evident to mister Barnstable that mister Catskill was
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: expressing a very definite point of view. He was offering
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: a reasoned and intelligible view of utopia. Mister Barnstable disagreed
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: with that criticism. Indeed he disagreed with it violently, but
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: he had to recognize that it expressed an understandable attitude
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of mind. Mister Catskill began with a sweeping admission of
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the beauty and order of utopia. He praised the glowing
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: health he saw on every cheek, the wealth, tranquility, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: comfort of utopian life. They had tamed the forces of
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: nature and subjugated them altogether to one's sole end, to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the material comfort of the race. But Arden and Green
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Lake murmured mister Barnstable, mister Caskell did not hear or
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: heed the interruption. The first effect, mister speaker, mister Serpentine,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I should say, the first effect upon an earthly mind
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: is overwhelming. Is it any wonder he glanced at mister
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Burley and mister Barnstable. Is it any wonder that admiration
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: has carried some of us off our feet? Is it
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: any wonder that for a time, your almost magic beauty
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: has charmed us into forgetting much that is in our
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: own natures, into forgetting deep and mysterious impulses, cravings, necessities,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: so that we have been ready to say, here at
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: last is lotus land here, Let us abide, Let us
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: adapt ourselves to this planned and ordered splendor, and live
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: our lives out here, and die, I too, mister mister Serpentine,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: succumbed to that magic for a time, but only for
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a time. Already, Sir, I find myself full of questionings.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: His bright headlong mind had seized upon the fact that
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: every phase in the weeding and cleansing of Utopia from
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: pests and parasites and diseases had been accompanied by the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: possibility of collateral limitations and losses. Or perhaps it would
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: be juster to say that that fact had seized upon
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: his mind. He ignored the deliberation and precautions that had
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: accompanied every step in the process of making a world securely,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: healthy and wholesome for human activity. He assumed there had
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: been losses with every gain. He went on to exaggerate
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: these losses, and ran on glibly to the inevitable metaphor
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of throwing away the baby with its bath. Inevitable, that is,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: for a British parliamentarian. The Utopians, he declared, were living
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: lives of extraordinary ease, safety, and may I say so indulgence.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: They work, said mister Barnstable. But with a thousand annoyances
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and disagreeables gone, had not something else, greater and more
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: precious gone? Also? Life on earth was, he admitted, insecure,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: full of pains and anxieties, full indeed of miseries and
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: distresses and anguish But also, and indeed by reason of
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: these very things, it had moments of intensity, hopes, joyful surprises,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: escapes attainments such as the ordered life of Utopia could
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: not possibly afford. You have been getting away from conflicts
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and distresses. Have you not also been getting away from
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the living and quivering realities of life. He launched out
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: upon a eulogy of earthly life. He extolled the vitality
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: of life upon earth, as though there were no signs
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: of vitality in the high splendor about him. He spoke
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: of the thunder of our crowded cities, of the urge
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: of our teeming millions, of the broad tides of commerce
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and industrial effort and warfare that swayed and came and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: went in the hives and harbors of our race. He
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: had the knack of the plausible phrase and that imaginative
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: touch which makes for eloquence. Mister Barnstable forgot that slight
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: impediment and the thickness of the voice that said these things.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Mister Catskill boldly admitted all the earthly evils and dangers
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that mister Burley had retailed. Everything that mister Burley had
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: said was true. All that he had said fell indeed
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: far short of the truth. Famine we knew, and pestilence
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: we suffered from a thousand diseases that Utopia had eliminated.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: We were afflicted by a thousand afflictions that were known
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to Utopia now only by ancient tradition. The rats, gnaw
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and the summer flies, persecute and madden. At times, life
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: reeks and stinks. I admit it, sir, I admit it,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: go down far below your extremest experiences, into discomforts and miseries,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: anxieties and anguish of soul and body, into bitterness, terror
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and despair. Yea, but do we not also go higher?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I challenge you with that. What can you know in
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: this immense safety, of the intensity, the frantic terror driven
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: intensity of many of our efforts. What can you know
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of reprieves and interludes and escapes, think of our many
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: happinesses beyond your ken What do you know here of
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the sweet early days of convalescence, of going for a
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: holiday out of disagreeable surroundings, of taking some great risk
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to body or fortune and bringing it off, of winning
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: a bet against enormous odds, of coming out of prison.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And sir, it has been said that there are those
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: in our world who have found a fascination even in
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: pain itself. Because our life is dreadfuler sir, it has
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and it must have moments that are infinitely brighter than yours.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: It is titanic, sir, where this is merely tidy, and
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: we are inured to it and hardened by it. We
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: are tempered to a finer edge. That is the point
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: to which I am coming ask us to give up
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: our earthly disorder, our miseries and distresses, our high death rates,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and our hideous diseases. And at the first question, every
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: man and woman in the world would say yes, willingly, yes,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: at the first question. Sir, mister Catskill held his audience
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: for a moment on his extended finger. And then we
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: should begin to take thought. We should ask, as you
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: say your naturalists asked about your flies and such like
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: offensive small game. We should ask what goes with it?
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: What is the price? And when we learned that the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: price was to surrender that intensity of life, that tormented energy,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: that pickled and experienced toughness, that rut like wolf like toughness,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: our perpetual struggle engenders, we should hesitate. We should hesitate
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: in the answer. I believe, I hope and believe. Indeed
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I pray and believe. We should say no. We should
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: say no. Mister Catskill was now in a state of
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: great cerebral exultation. He was making short, thrusting gestures with
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: his clenched fist. His voice rose and fell and boomed.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: He swayed and turned about, glanced for the approval of
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: his fellow earthlings. Flung stray smiles at mister Burley. This
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: idea that our poor, wrangling, nerveless, chance driven world was
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: really a fierce and close knit system of powerful reactions
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: in contrast with the evening serenities of a made and
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: finished utopia, had taken complete possession of his mind. Never before, Sir,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: have I realized, as I realize now the high, the
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: terrible and adventurous destinies of our earthly race. I look
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: upon this golden lotus land of yours, this divine, perfected
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: land from which all conflict has been banished. Mister Barnstable
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: caught a faint smile on the face of the woman
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: who had reminded him of the delphic sybyl, And I
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: admit and admire its order and beauty, as some dusty
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and resolute pilgrim might pause on his exalted and mysterious quest,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: and admit and admire the order and beauty of the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: pleasant gardens of some prosperous sybarite. And like that pilgrim,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I may beg leave, sir, to question the wisdom of
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: your way of living. For I take it, sir, that
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: it is now a proven thing that life and all
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the energy and beauty of life are begotten by struggle
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and competition and conflict. We were molded and wrought in hardship,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: and so, sir, were you. And yet you dream here
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: that you have eliminated conflict forever. Your economic state, I gather,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: is some form of socialism. You have abolished competition in
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: all the businesses of peace. Your political state is one
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: universal unity. You have altogether cut out the bracing and
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: ennobling threat, and the purging and terrifying experience of war.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Everything is ordered and provided for. Everything is secure. Everything
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: is secure, sir, except for one thing. I grieve to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: trouble your tranquility, sir, but I must breathe the name
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: of that one forgotten thing, degeneration. What is there here
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: to prevent degeneration? Are you preventing degeneration? What penalties are
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: there any longer for indolence? What rewards for exceptional energy
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and effort? What is there to keep men industry? What watchful?
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: When there is no personal danger and no personal loss,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: but only some remote danger or injury to the community
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: for a time, by a sort of inertia. You may
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: keep going. You may seem to be making a successive things.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I admit it, you do seem to be making a
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: successive things. Autumnal glory, sunset splendor. While about you, in
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: universes parallel to yours, parallel races still toil, still suffer,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: still compete, and eliminate, and gather strength and energy. Mister
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Catskill flourished his hand at the Utopians in rhetorical triumph.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I would not have you think, sir, that these criticisms
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of your world are offered in a hostile spirit. They
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: are offered in the most amiable and helpful spirit. I
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: am the skeleton, but the most friendly and apologetic skeleton
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: at your feast. I ask my searching and disagreeable question,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: because I must. Is it indeed the wise way that
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: you have chosen? You have sweetness and light and leisure granted.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But if there is all this multitude of universes of
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: which you have told us, mister Serpentine, so clearly and illuminatingly,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: and if one may suddenly open into another as ours
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: has done into yours, I would ask you, most earnestly,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: how safe is your sweetness, your light, and your leisure.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: We talk here separated by we know not how flimsy
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: a partition from innumerable worlds. And at that thought, sir,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: it seems to me that as I stand here in
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: the great golden calm of this place, I can almost
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: hear the trampling of hungry myriads, as fierce and persistent
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: as rats or wolves, the snarling voices of races inure
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: to every pain and cruelty, the threat of terrible heroisms
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: and pitiless aggressions. He brought his discourse to an abrupt end.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: He smiled faintly. It seemed to mister Barnstable that he
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: triumphed over utopia. He stood with hands on his hips,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: and as if he bent his body by that method,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: bowed stiffly, Sir, he said, with that ghost of a
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: lisp of his his eye in mister Burley, I have
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: said my say. He turned about and regarded mister Barnstable
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: for a moment, with his face screwed up almost to
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the appearance of a wink. He nodded his head as
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: if he tapped a nail with a hammer, jerked himself
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: into activity, and returned to his proper place five Erthred
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: did not so much answer mister caskill as sit elbow
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: and knee and chin on hand, thinking audibly about him.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: The gnawing vigor of the rat, he mused, the craving
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: pursuit of the wolf, the mechanical persistence of wasp and fly,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and disease germ have gone out of our world. That
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: is true, we have obliterated that much of life's devouring
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: forces and lost nothing worth having, pain, filth, indignity for
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: ourselves or any creatures. They have gone, or they go.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: But it is not true that competition has gone from
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: our world. Why does he say it has? Every one
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: here works to his or her utmost for service and distinction.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: None may cheat himself out of toil or duty, as
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: men did in the Age of Confusion, when the mean
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: and acquisitive lived and bred in luxury upon the heedlessness
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: of more generous types. Why does he say we degenerate.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: He has been told better already. The indolent and inferior
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: do not procreate here. And why should he threaten us
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: with fancies of eruptions from other, fiercer, more barbaric worlds.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: It is we who can open the doors into such
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: other universes, or close them as we choose, because we
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: know we can go to them when we know enough,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: we shall, but they cannot come to us. There is
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: no way but knowledge out of the cages of life.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: What is the matter with the mind of this man?
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: These earthlings are only in the beginnings of science. They
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: are still, for all practical ends, in that phase of
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: fear and taboos that come also in the development of utopia,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: before confidence and understanding, out of which phase our own
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: world struggle during the last age of confusion. The minds
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of these earthlings are full of fears and prohibitions, and
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: though it has dawned upon them that they may possibly
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: control their universe, the thought is too terrible yet for
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: them to face. They avert their minds from it. They
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: still want to go on, thinking, as their fathers did
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: before them, that the universe is being managed for them
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: better than they can control it for themselves, because if
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: that is so, they are free to obey their own violent,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: little individual motives. Leave things to God, they cry, or
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: leave them to competition. Evolution was our blessed word, said
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: mister Barnstable, deeply interested. It is all the same thing
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: God or evolution or what you will, so long as
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: you mean a power beyond your own which excuses you
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: from your duty. Utopia says, do not leave things at all,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: take hold. But these earthenings still lack the habit of
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: looking at reality undraped. This man with the white linen
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: fetter round his neck is afraid even to look upon
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: men and women as they are. He is disgustingly excited
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: by the common human body. This man with the glass
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: lens before his left eye struggles to believe that there
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: is a wise, old mother Nature behind the appearances of things,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: keeping a balance. It was fantastic to hear about this
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: balance of nature. Cannot he with two eyes and a
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: lens see better than that? This last man, who spoke
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: so impressively, thinks that this old bell Dame nature is
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: a limitless source of will and energy, if only we
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: submit to her freaks and cruelties and imitate her most
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: savage moods, if only we sufficiently thrust and kill, and
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: rob and ravish one another. He too, preaches the old
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: fatalism and believes it is the teaching of science. These
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: earthlings do not yet dare see what our mother nature
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: is at the back of their minds is still the
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: desire to abandon themselves to her. They do not see that,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: except for our eyes and wills, she is purposeless and blind.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: She is not awful, she is horrible. She takes no
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: heed to our standards, nor to any standards of excellence.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: She made us by accident. All her children are bastards, undesired.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: She will cherish or expose them, pet or starve or
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: torment without rhyme or reason. She does not heed, she
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: does not care. She will lift us up to power
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: and intelligence, or debase us to the mean feebleness of
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: the rabbit, or the slimy, white filthiness of a thousand
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: of her parasitic inventions. There must be good in her,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: because she made all that is good in us. But
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: also there is endless evil. Do not you earthening see
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the dirt of her, the cruelty, the insane indignity of
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: much of her work. Phew, worse than nature. Red in
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: tooth and claw, murmured mister Freddie Mush, these things are
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: plain mused erthred. If they dared to see half the
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: species of life our planet, also half and more than
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: half of all the things alive, were ugly or obnoxious, inane, miserable,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: wretched with elaborate diseases, helplessly ill adjusted to nature's continually
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: fluctuating conditions. When first we took this old hag or
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: mother in hand, we have, after centuries of struggle, suppressed
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: her nastier fancies, and washed her and combed her, and
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: taught her to respect and heed the last child of
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: her wantonings. Man with man came logos, the Word and
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the Will into our universe, to watch it and fear it,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: to learn it, and cease to fear it, to know it,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: and comprehend it, and master it, so that we of
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Utopia are no longer the beaten and starved children of Nature,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: but her free and adolescent sons. We have taken over
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: the old lady's estate. Every day we learn a little
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: better how to master this little planet. Every day our
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: thoughts go out more surely to our inheritance the stars
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and the deeps beyond and beneath the stars. You have
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: reached the stars, cried mister Barnstable. Not yet, not even
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the other planets. But very plainly the time draws near
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: when those great distances will cease to restrain us. He paused,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: many of us will have to go out into the
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: deeps of space and never return, giving their lives and
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: into these new spaces, countless brave men arthred turned towards
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: mister Catskill. We find your frankly expressed thoughts particularly interesting
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to day. You help us to understand the past of
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: our own world. You help us to deal with an
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: urgent problem that we will presently explain to you. There
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: are thoughts and ideas like yours in our ancient literature
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: of two or three thousand years ago, the same preaching
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: of selfish violence, as though it was a virtue. Even then,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: intelligent men knew better, and you, yourself, might know better
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: if you were not wilfully set in wrong opinions. But
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: it is plain to see from your manner and bearing
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: that you are very wilful. Indeed, in your opinions you
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: are not. You must realize, a very beautiful person, and
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: probably you are not very beautiful in your pleasures and proceedings.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: But you have superabundant energy, and so it is natural
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: for you to turn to the excitements of risk and escape,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: to think that the best thing in life is the
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: sensation of conflict and winning. Also in the economic confusion
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of such a world as yours, there is an intolerable
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: amount of toil that must be done, toil so disagreeable
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: that it makes every one of spirit anxious to thrust
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: away as much of it as possible, and to claim
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: exemption from it on account of nobility, gallantry, or good fortune.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: People in your world, no doubt, persuade themselves very easily
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: that they are justifiably exempted. And you are under that persuasion.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: You live in a world of classes. Your badly trained
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: mind has been under no necessity to invent its own excuses.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: The class into which you were born had all its
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: excuses ready for you. So it is you take the
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: best of everything without scruple, and you adventure with life,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: chiefly at the expense of other people, with a mind
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: trained by all its circumstances to resist the idea that
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: there is any possible way of human living that can
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: be steadfast and disciplined and at the same time vigorous
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and happy. You have argued against that persuasion all your life,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: as though it were your personal enemy. It is your
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: personal enemy. It condemns your way of life altogether. It
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: damns you utterly for your adventures. Confronted now with an
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: ordered and achieved beauty of living, you still resist. You
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: resist to escape dismay. You argue that this world of
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: ours is unromantic, wanting, in intensity, decadent, feeble. Now in
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the matter of physical strength, grip hands with that young
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: man who sits beside you. Mister Caskoll glanced at the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: extended hand and shook his head knowingly. You go on talking,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: he said. Yet when I tell you that neither our
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: wills nor our bodies are as feeble as yours, your
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: mind resists obstinately. You will not believe it. If for
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: a moment your mind admits it, afterwards it recoils to
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: the system of persuasions that protect your self esteem. Only
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: one of you accepts our world at all, and he
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: does so rather because he is weary of yours than
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: willing for so, I suppose it has to be Yours
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: are age of confusion, minds trained to conflict, train to
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: insecurity and secret self seeking. In that fashion, nature and
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: your state have taught you to live, and so you
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: must needs live until you die. Such lessons are to
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: be unlearnt only in ten thousand generations by the slow
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: education of three thousand years, and we are puzzled by
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the question what are we to do with you? We
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: will try our utmost to deal fairly and friendly with
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: you if you will respect our laws and ways, But
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it will be very difficult, we know for you. You
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: do not realize yet how difficult your habits and preconceptions
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: will make it for you. Your party so far has behaved
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: very reasonably and property in act, if not in thought.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: But we have had another experience of Earthling ways to day,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: of a much more tragic kind. Your talk of fiercer,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: barbaric worlds breaking in upon us has had its grotesque
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: parallel in reality to day. It is true there is
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: something fierce and rat like and dangerous about earthly men.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: You are not the only earthlings who came into Utopia
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: through this gate that swung open for a moment to day.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: There are others, of course, said mister Barnstable. I should
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: have guessed it that third lot. There is yet another
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: of these queer locomotive machines of yours in Utopia, the
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: gray car, said mister Barnstable to mister Burley. It wasn't
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: a hundred yards ahead of you raised us from hounslow
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: said mister Burley's driver, real hot stuff. Mister Burley turned
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: to mister Freddy, Mush, I think you said you recognized
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: some one, Lord beara lunga sir, almost to a certainty,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: And I think miss Greeta Gray. There were two other men,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: said mister Barnstable. They will complicate things, said mister Burley.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: They do complicate things, said Erthred. They have killed a
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: man a Utopian. These other people, there are five of them,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: whose names you seem to know, came into Utopia just
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: in front of your two vehicles. Instead of stopping as
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: you did when they found themselves on a new strange road,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: they seemed to have quickened their pace very considerably. They
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: passed some men and women, and they made extraordinary gestures
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: to them and abominable noises produced by an instrument specially
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: designed for that purpose. Further on, they encountered a silver
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: cheetah and charged at it and ran right over it,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: breaking its back. They do not seem to have paused
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to see what became of it. A young man named
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Gold came out into the road to add asked them
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: to stop. But their machine is made in the most
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: fantastic way, very complex and very foolish. It is quite
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: unable to stop short suddenly. It is not driven by
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: a single engine that is completely controlled. It is a
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: complicated internal conflict. It has a sort of engine that
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: drives it forward by a complex cogged gear on the
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: axle of the hind wheels, and it has various clumsy
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: stopping contrivances. By means of friction. At certain points, you
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: can apparently drive the engine at the utmost speed, and
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: at the same time jammed the wheels to prevent them
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: going round. When this young man stepped forward in front
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: of them, they were quite unable to stop. They may
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: have tried to do so, they say they did. Their
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: machine swerved dangerously and struck him with its side and
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: killed him, and killed him instantly. His body was horribly injured.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: But they did not stop even for that. They slowed
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: down and had a hasty consultation, and then, seeing that
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: people were coming, they set their machine in motion again
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and made off. They seemed to have been seized with
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: a panic, fear of restraint and punishment. Their motives are
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: very difficult to understand. At any rate, they went on.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: They rode on and on into our country for some
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: hours an aeroplane was presently set to follow them, and
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: another to clear the road in front of them. It
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: was very difficult to clear the road, because neither our
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: people nor our animals understand such vehicles as theirs, nor
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: such behavior. In the afternoon, they got among mountains and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: evidently found our roads much too smooth and difficult for
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: their machine. It made extraordinary noises as though it was
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: gritting its teeth, and emitted a blue vapor with an
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: offensive smell. At one corner where it should have stopped short,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: it skated about and slid suddenly sideways, and rolled over
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: a cliff, and fell, for perhaps twice the height of
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: a man, into a torrent. And they were killed, asked
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: mister Burley, with as it seemed to mister Barnstable, a
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: touch of eagerness in his voice. Not one of them, oh,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: said mister Burley. Then what happened? One of them has
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: a broken arm, and another is badly cut about the face.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: The other two men and the woman are uninjured except
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: for fright and shock. When our people came up to them,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: the four men held their hands above their heads. Apparently
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: they feared they would be killed at once, and did
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: this as an appeal for mercy, and what are you
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: doing with them? We are bringing them here. It is better,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: we think, to keep all you earthlings together. At present,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: we cannot imagine what must be done to you. We
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: want to learn from you, and we want to be
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: friendly with you. If it is possible, it has been
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: suggested that you should be returned to your world. In
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: the end, that may be the best thing to do,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: but at present we do not know enough to do this. Certainly,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Arden and green Lake, when they made the attempt to
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: rotate a part of our matter through the f dimension,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: believed that they would rotate it in empty space in
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: that dimension. The fact that you were there, and you
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: were caught into our universe is the most unexpected thing
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that has happened in Utopia for a thousand years. End
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: of Section six