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006 - The Unthinkable Theory of Professor Green · Tales of the Long Bow

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Speaker 1: Chapter six of Tales of the Longbow. This is a
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Devora Allen. Tales of the Longbow by G. K. Chesterton,
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Speaker 1: Chapter six, The Unthinkable theory of Professor Green. If the
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Speaker 1: present passage in the Chronicles of the Longbow seems but
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Speaker 1: a side issue, an interlude in an idol, a mere
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Speaker 1: romantic episode, lacking that larger structural achievement which gives solidity
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Speaker 1: and hard actuality to the other stories, the reader is
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Speaker 1: requested not to be hasty in his condemnation, for in
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Speaker 1: the little love story of mister Oliver Green is to
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Speaker 1: be found, as in a parable, the beginning of the
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Speaker 1: final apotheosis and last judgment of all these things. It
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Speaker 1: may well begin on a morning when the sunlight came
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Speaker 1: late but brilliant, under the lifting of great clouds from
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Speaker 1: a great gray sweep of wolves that grew purple as
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Speaker 1: they dipped again into distance. Much of that mighty slope
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Speaker 1: was striped and scored with plowed fields, but a rude
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Speaker 1: path ran across it, along which two figures could be
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Speaker 1: seen in full stride, outlined against the morning sky.
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Speaker 2: They were both.
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Speaker 1: Tall, but beyond the fact that they had both once
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Speaker 1: been professional soldiers of rather different types and times, they
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Speaker 1: had very little in common. By their ages. They might
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Speaker 1: almost have been father and son, and this would not
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Speaker 1: have been contradicted by the fact that the younger appeared
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Speaker 1: to be talking all the time in a high, confident
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Speaker 1: and almost crowing voice, while the elder only now and
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Speaker 1: then put in a word. But they were not father
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Speaker 1: and son. Strangely enough, they were really talking and walking
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Speaker 1: together because they were friends. Those who know only too
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Speaker 1: well their proceedings as narrated elsewhere, would have recognized Colonel
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Speaker 1: Crane once of the Coldstream Guards, and Captain Pierce Late
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Speaker 1: of the Flying Corps. The young man appeared to be
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Speaker 1: talking triumphantly about a great American capitalist whom he professed
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Speaker 1: to have persuaded to see the error of his ways.
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Speaker 1: He talked rather as if he had been slumming. I'm
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Speaker 1: very proud of it, I can tell you, he said.
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Speaker 1: Anybody can produce a penitent murderer, it's something to produce
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Speaker 1: a penitent millionaire. And I do believe that poor Enoch
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Speaker 1: Oates had seen the light thanks to my conversations at lunch,
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Speaker 1: since I talked to him. Oates is another and a
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Speaker 1: better man, sown his wild Oats, in fact, remarked Crane.
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Speaker 2: Well, replied the other.
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Speaker 1: In a sense, they were very quiet Oats, almost what
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Speaker 1: you might call Quaker Oats. He was a Puritan and
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Speaker 1: a prohibitionist, and a pacifist and an internationalist, in short,
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Speaker 1: everything that is in darkness and the shadow of death.
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Speaker 1: But what you said about him was quite right. His
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Speaker 1: heart's in the right place. It's on a sleeve. That's
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Speaker 1: why I preached the gospel to the noble savage and
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Speaker 1: made him a convert. But what did you convert him to?
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Speaker 1: Inquired the other. Private property, replied Pierce, promptly. Being a millionaire,
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Speaker 1: he had never heard of it. But when I explained
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Speaker 1: the first elementary idea of it in a simple form,
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Speaker 1: he was quite taken with the notion. I pointed out
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Speaker 1: that he might abandon robbery on a large scale and
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Speaker 1: create property on a small scale. He felt it was
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Speaker 1: very revolutionary, but he admitted.
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Speaker 2: It was right.
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Speaker 1: Well, you know, he'd bought this big English estate out here.
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Speaker 1: He was going to play the philanthropist and have a
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Speaker 1: model a state with all the regular trimmings, heads hygienically
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Speaker 1: shaved by machinery every morning, and the cottagers admitted once
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Speaker 1: a month into their own front gardens and told to
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Speaker 1: keep off the grass. But I said to him, if
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Speaker 1: you're going to give things to people, why not give em.
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Speaker 1: If you give your friend a plant in a pot,
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Speaker 1: you don't send him an inspector from the Society for
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Speaker 1: the Prevention of Cruelty to Vegetables to see he waters
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Speaker 1: it properly. If you give your friend a box of cigars,
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Speaker 1: you don't make him write a monthly report of how
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Speaker 1: many he spokes a day. Can't you be a little
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Speaker 1: generous with your generosity. Why don't you use your money
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Speaker 1: to make free men instead of to make slaves. Why
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Speaker 1: don't you give your tenants their land and have done
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Speaker 1: with it, or let him have it very cheap. And
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Speaker 1: he's done it, he's really done it. He's created hundreds
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Speaker 1: of small proprietors and changed the whole of this countryside.
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Speaker 1: That's why I want you to come up and see
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Speaker 1: one of the small farms. Yes, said Colonel Crane, I
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Speaker 1: should like to see the farm. There's a lot of
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Speaker 1: fuss about it too. There's the devil of a row
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Speaker 1: went on the young man in very high spirits. Lots
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Speaker 1: of big combines and things are trying to crush the
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Speaker 1: small farmers with all sorts of tricks. They even complain
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Speaker 1: of interference by an American. You can imagine how much Rosenbaum, Low,
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Speaker 1: and Goldstein and Guggenheimer must be distressed by the notion
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Speaker 1: of a foreigner interfering in England. I want to know
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Speaker 1: how foreigner could interfere less than by giving back their
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Speaker 1: land to the English people and clearing out. They all
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Speaker 1: put it on to me, and right they are. I
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Speaker 1: regard Oates as my property, my convert captive of my
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Speaker 1: bow and spear captive of your longbow, I imagine, said
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Speaker 1: the colonel. I bet you told him a good many
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Speaker 1: things that nobody but a shrewd business man would have
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Speaker 1: been innocent enough to believe. If I use the long bow,
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Speaker 1: replied Pierce, with dignity. It is a weapon with heroic memories,
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Speaker 1: proper to a yeoman of England. With what more fitting
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Speaker 1: weapon could we try to establish a yeomanry. There is
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Speaker 1: something over there, said Crane quietly, that looks to me,
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Speaker 1: rather like another sort of weapon. They had by this
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Speaker 1: time come in full sight of the farm buildings which
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Speaker 1: crowned the long slope, and beyond a kitchen, garden and
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Speaker 1: an orchard rose a thatched roof with a row of
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Speaker 1: old fashioned lattice windows under it, the window at the
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Speaker 1: end standing open, and out of this window at the
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Speaker 1: edge of the block of building protruded a big black object,
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Speaker 1: rigid and apparently cylindrical, thrust out above the garden and
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Speaker 1: dark against the morning daylight. A gun, cried Pierce, involuntarily.
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Speaker 1: Looks just like a howitzer or is it an anti
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Speaker 1: aircraft gun? Anti ermin gun? No doubt, said Crane. They
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Speaker 1: heard you were coming down and took precautions. But what
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Speaker 1: the devil can he want with a gun, muttered Pierce,
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Speaker 1: peering at the dark outline. And who the devil is he?
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Speaker 1: If it comes to that, said the colonel. Why that window,
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Speaker 1: explained Pierce. That's the window of the room they've let
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Speaker 1: to a paying guest. I know, man of the name
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Speaker 1: of Green, I understand, rather a recluse. And I suppose
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Speaker 1: some sort of crank, not an anti armament crank anyhow,
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Speaker 1: said the colonel. By George, said Pierce, whistling softly. I
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Speaker 1: wonder whether things really have moved faster than we could fancy.
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Speaker 1: I wonder whether it's a revolution or a civil war beginning.
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Speaker 1: After all, I suppose we are an army ourselves. I
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Speaker 1: represent the air force and you represent the infantry. You
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Speaker 1: represent the infants, answered the colonel. You are too young
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Speaker 1: for this world, you and your revolutions. As a matter
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Speaker 1: of fact, it isn't a gun, though it does look
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Speaker 1: rather like one. I see now what it is, and
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Speaker 1: what in the world is it, asked his friend. It's
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Speaker 1: a telescope, said Crane, one of those very big telescopes
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Speaker 1: they usually have in observatories. Couldn't be partly a gun
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Speaker 1: and partly a telescope, pleaded Pierce, reluctant to abandon his
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Speaker 1: first fancy. I've often seen the phrase shooting stars, but
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Speaker 1: perhaps I've got the grammar and sons of it wrong.
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Speaker 1: The young men lodging with the farmer may be following
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Speaker 1: one of the local sports, the local substitute for duck shooting.
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Speaker 1: What in the world are you talking about? Growled the other.
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Speaker 1: Their lodger may be shooting the stars, explained Pierce. Hope
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Speaker 1: their lodger isn't shooting the moon, said the flippant Crane.
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Speaker 1: As they spoke. Came towards them through the green and
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Speaker 1: twinkling twilight of the orchard, a young woman with copper
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Speaker 1: colored hair and a square and rather striking face, whom
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Speaker 1: Pierce saluted respectfully as the daughter of the house. He
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Speaker 1: was very punctilious upon the point that these new peasant
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Speaker 1: farmers must be treated like small squires and not like
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Speaker 1: tenants or serfs. I see your friend, mister Green has
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Speaker 1: got his telescope out. He said, Yes, sir, said the girl.
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Speaker 1: They say mister Green is a great astronomer. I doubt
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Speaker 1: if you ought to call me sir, said Pierce reflectively.
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Speaker 1: It suggests rather the forgotten feudalism than the new equality.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps you might oblige me by saying yes, citizen. Then
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Speaker 1: we could continue our talk about Citizen Green on an
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Speaker 1: equal footing. By the way, pardon me, let me present
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Speaker 1: citizen Crane. Citizen Crane bowed politely to the young woman,
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Speaker 1: without any apparent enthusiasm for his new title. But Pierce
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Speaker 1: went on rather rum to call ourselves citizens when we're
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Speaker 1: all so glad to be out of the city. We
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Speaker 1: really want some term suitable to rural equality. The socialists
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Speaker 1: have spoilt comrade. You can't be a comrade without a
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Speaker 1: liberty tie and a pointed beard. Morris had a good
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Speaker 1: notion of one man calling another neighbor. That sounds a
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Speaker 1: little more rustic, I suppose, he added wistfully to the girl.
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Speaker 1: I suppose I could not induce you to call me
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Speaker 1: gaffer unless I'm mistaken, observed Crane. That's your astronomer wondering
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Speaker 1: about in the garden. Thinks he's a botanist, perhaps appropriate
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Speaker 1: to the name of green Oh. He often wonders in
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Speaker 1: the garden and down to the meadow in the cow sheds,
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Speaker 1: said the young woman. He talks to himself a good deal,
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Speaker 1: explaining a great theory he's got. He explains it to
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Speaker 1: everybody he meets, too.
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Speaker 2: Sometimes he explains it to me when I'm milking the cow.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps you can explain it to us, said Pierce. Not
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Speaker 1: so bad as that, she said, laughing. It's something like
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Speaker 1: that fourth dimension they talk about. But I've no doubt
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Speaker 1: he'll explain it to you if you meet him. Not
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Speaker 1: for me, said Pierce, I'm a simple peasant, proprietor and
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Speaker 1: ask nothing but three dimensions and a cow. Cow's the
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Speaker 1: fourth dimension, I suppose, said Crane. I must go and
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Speaker 1: attend to the fourth dimension, she said, with a smile.
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Speaker 1: Peasants all live by patchwork, running two or three side shows,
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Speaker 1: observed peers curious sort of live stock on the farm,
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Speaker 1: think of people living on a cow and chickens and
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Speaker 1: an astronomer. As he spoke, the astronomer approached along the
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Speaker 1: path by which the girl had just passed.
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Speaker 2: His eyes were.
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Speaker 1: Covered with huge horn spectacles of a dim blue color,
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Speaker 1: for he was warned to save his eyesight for his
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Speaker 1: starry vigils. This gave a misleading look of morbidity to
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Speaker 1: a face that was naturally frank and healthy, and the figure,
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Speaker 1: though stooping, was stalwart, he was very absent minded. Every
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Speaker 1: now and then he looked at the ground and frowned,
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Speaker 1: as if he did not like it. Oliver Green was
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Speaker 1: a very young professor, but a very old young man.
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Speaker 1: He had passed from science as the hobby of a
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Speaker 1: schoolboy to science as the ambition of a middle aged man,
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Speaker 1: without any intermediate holiday of youth. Moreover, his monomania had
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Speaker 1: been fixed and frozen by success, at least by a
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Speaker 1: considerable success for a man of his years. He was
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Speaker 1: already a fellow of the chief learned societies connected with
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Speaker 1: his subject, when there grew up in his mind the grand, universal,
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Speaker 1: all sufficing theory, which had come to fill the whole
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Speaker 1: of his life as the daylight fills the day. If
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Speaker 1: we attempted the exposition of that theory here, it is
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Speaker 1: doubtful whether the result would resemble daylight. Professor Green was
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Speaker 1: always ready to prove it. But if we were to
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Speaker 1: set out the proof in this place, the next four
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Speaker 1: or five pages would be covered with closely printed columns
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Speaker 1: of figures brightened here and there by geometrical designs such
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Speaker 1: as seldom formed part of the text of a Romantic story.
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Speaker 1: Suffice it to say that the theory had something to
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Speaker 1: do with relativity and the reversal of the relations between
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Speaker 1: the stationary and the moving object. Pierce, the aviator, who
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Speaker 1: had passed much of his time on moving objects, not
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Speaker 1: without the occasional anticipation of bumping into stationary objects, talked
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Speaker 1: to Green a little on the subject. Being interested in
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Speaker 1: scientific aviation, he was nearer to the abstract sciences than
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Speaker 1: were his friends Crane with his hobby of folklore, or
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Speaker 1: hood with his love of classic literature, or wielding White
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Speaker 1: with his reading of the mystics. But the young aviator
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Speaker 1: frankly admitted that Professor Green soared high into the heavens
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Speaker 1: of the higher mathematics, far beyond the flight of his
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Speaker 1: little aeroplane. The Professor had begun, as he always began,
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Speaker 1: by saying that it was quite easy to explain, which
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Speaker 1: was doubtless true, as he was always explaining it. But
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Speaker 1: he often ended by a firm arming fallaciously that it
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Speaker 1: was quite easy to understand, and it would be an
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Speaker 1: exaggeration to say that it was always understood. Anyhow, he
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Speaker 1: was just about to read his great paper on his
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Speaker 1: great theory at the Great Astronomical Congress that was to
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Speaker 1: be held that year at Bath, which was one reason
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Speaker 1: why he had pitched his astronomical camp or and placed
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Speaker 1: his astronomical gun in the house of farmer Dale on
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Speaker 1: the hills of Somerset. Mister Enoch Oates could not but
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Speaker 1: feel the lingering hesitation of the landlord when he heard
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Speaker 1: that his proteges the Dales, were about to admit an
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Speaker 1: unknown stranger into their household. But Pierce sternly reminded him
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Speaker 1: that this paternal attitude was a thing of the past,
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Speaker 1: and that a free peasant was free to let lodging
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Speaker 1: to a homicidal maniac if he liked. Nevertheless, Pierce was
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Speaker 1: rather relieved to find the maniac was only an astronomer.
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Speaker 1: But it would have been all the same if he
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Speaker 1: had been an astrologer. Before coming to the farm. These
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Speaker 1: astronomer had set up his telescope in much dingier places,
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Speaker 1: in lodgings in Bloomsbury and the grimy buildings of a
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Speaker 1: Midland university. He thought he was, and to a great
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Speaker 1: extent he was indifferent to his surroundings. But for all that,
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Speaker 1: the air and color of those country surroundings were slowly
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Speaker 1: and strangely sinking into him. The idea is simplicity itself,
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Speaker 1: he said earnestly, when Pierce rallied him about the theory.
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Speaker 1: It is only the proof that is, of course a
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Speaker 1: trifle technical, put in a very crude and popular shape.
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Speaker 1: It depends on the mathematical formula for the inversion of
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Speaker 1: the sphere, what we call turning the world upside down.
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Speaker 1: Said Pierce. I'm all in favor of it. Everyone knows
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Speaker 1: the idea of relativity applied to motion, went on the professor.
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Speaker 1: When you run out of a village in a motor car,
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Speaker 1: you might say that the village runs away from you.
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Speaker 1: The village does run away when Pierce is out motoring,
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Speaker 1: remarked Crane. Anyhow, the villagers do. But he generally prefers
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Speaker 1: to frighten them with an aeroplane. Indeed, said the astronomer,
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Speaker 1: with some interest, an aeroplane would make an even better
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Speaker 1: working model. Compare the movement of an aeroplane with what
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Speaker 1: we call merely for convenience. The fixity of the fixed stars.
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Speaker 1: I dare say they got a bit unfixed when peers
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Speaker 1: bumped into them, said the colonel. Professor Greene sighed in
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Speaker 1: a sad but patient spirit. He could not help being
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Speaker 1: a little disappointed. Even with the most intelligent outsiders with
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Speaker 1: whom he conversed, their remarks were pointed, but hardly to
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Speaker 1: the point. He felt more and more that he really
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Speaker 1: preferred those who made no remarks. The flowers in the
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Speaker 1: trees made no remarks. They stood in rows and allowed
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Speaker 1: him to lecture to them for hours on the fallacies
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Speaker 1: of accepted astronomy. The cow made no remarks. The girl
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Speaker 1: who milk the cow made no remarks, or if she did,
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Speaker 1: they were pleasant and kindly remarks, not intended to be clever.
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Speaker 1: He drifted, as he had done many times before, in
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Speaker 1: the direction of the cow. The young woman who milk
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Speaker 1: the cow was not in the common connotation what is
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Speaker 1: meant by milkmaid. Marjorie Dale was the daughter of a
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Speaker 1: substantial farmer, already respected in that county. She had been
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Speaker 1: to school and learnt various polite things before she came
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Speaker 1: back to the farm and continued to do the thousand
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Speaker 1: things that she could have taught the schoolmasters.
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Speaker 2: And something of.
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Speaker 1: This proportion or disproportion of knowledge, was dawning on Professor
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Speaker 1: Green as he stood staring at the cow and talking,
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Speaker 1: often in a sort of soliloquy, For he had a
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Speaker 1: rather similar sensation of a great many other things growing
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Speaker 1: up thickly like a jungle round his own, particular being
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Speaker 1: impressions and implications from all the girl's easy actions and
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Speaker 1: varied avocations. Perhaps he began to have a dim suspicion
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Speaker 1: that he was a schoolmaster who was being taught. The
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Speaker 1: earth and the sky were all already beginning to be
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Speaker 1: enriched with evening. The blue was already almost aglow, like
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Speaker 1: apple green, behind the line of branching apple trees against it.
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Speaker 1: The bulk of the farm stood in a darker outline,
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Speaker 1: and for the first time he realized something quaint or
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Speaker 1: queer added to that outline by his own big telescope
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Speaker 1: stuck up like a gun pointed at the moon. Somehow,
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Speaker 1: it looked, he could not tell why, like the beginning
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Speaker 1: of a story. The hollyhocks also looked incredibly tall. To
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Speaker 1: see what he would have called flowers so tall as
17:36
Speaker 1: that seemed like seeing a daisy or a dandelion as
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Speaker 1: large as a lamp post. He was positive there was
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Speaker 1: nothing exactly like it in Bloomsbury. These tall flowers also
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Speaker 1: looked like the beginning of a story, the story of
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Speaker 1: Jack and the Beanstalk. Though he knew little enough of
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Speaker 1: what influences were slowly sinking into him, he felt something
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Speaker 1: in the last memory. Whatever was moving within him was
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Speaker 1: something very far back, something that came from reading and writing.
18:09
Speaker 1: He had some dream as from a previous life, of
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Speaker 1: dark streaks of field under stormy clouds of summer, and
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Speaker 1: the sense that the flowers to be found there were
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Speaker 1: things like gems. He was in that country home that
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Speaker 1: every Cockney child feels he has always had and never visited.
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Speaker 1: I have to read my paper to night, he said abruptly.
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Speaker 1: I really ought to be thinking about it. I do
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Speaker 1: hope it will be a success, said the girl. But
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Speaker 1: I rather thought you were always thinking about it. Well.
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Speaker 1: I was, generally, he said, in a rather dazed fashion,
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Speaker 1: And indeed it was probably the first time that he
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Speaker 1: had ever found himself fully conscious of not thinking about it.
18:53
Speaker 1: Of what he was thinking about, he was by no
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Speaker 1: means fully conscious. I suppose you have to be awfully
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Speaker 1: clever even to understand it, observed Marjorie Dale conversationally. I
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Speaker 1: don't know, he said, slightly, stirred to the defensive. I'm
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Speaker 1: sure I could make you see, though. I don't mean
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Speaker 1: you aren't clever, of course. I mean I'm quite sure
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Speaker 1: you're clever enough to see, but to see anything, only
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Speaker 1: some sorts of things, I'm afraid, she said, smiling. I'm
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Speaker 1: sure your theory has got nothing to do with cows
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Speaker 1: and milking stools. It's got to do with anything, he
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Speaker 1: said eagerly, with everything. In fact, it would be just
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Speaker 1: as easy to prove it from stools and cows as
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Speaker 1: anything else. It's really quite simple reversing the usual mathematical formula.
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Speaker 1: It's possible to reach the same results in reality by
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Speaker 1: treating motion as a fixed point and stability as a
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Speaker 1: form of motion. You are told that the Earth goes
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Speaker 1: round the Sun and the Moon goes round the Earth. Well,
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Speaker 1: in my formula, we first treat it as if the
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Speaker 1: sun went round the earth. She looked up radiantly. I
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Speaker 1: always thought it looked like that, she said emphatically, and
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Speaker 1: you will, of course see for yourself. He continued triumphantly
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Speaker 1: that by the same logical inversion, we must suppose the
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Speaker 1: Earth to be going round the moon. The radiant face
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Speaker 1: showed a shadow of doubt, and she said, oh, but
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Speaker 1: any of the things you mention, the milking stool, or
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Speaker 1: the cow or what not, would serve the same purpose,
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Speaker 1: since they are objects generally regarded as stationary. He looked
20:24
Speaker 1: up vaguely at the moon, which was steadily brightening as
20:27
Speaker 1: vast shadows spread over the sky. Well, take those things
20:31
Speaker 1: you talk of, he went on, moved by a meaningless
20:34
Speaker 1: unrest and tremor.
20:36
Speaker 2: You see the.
20:37
Speaker 1: Moon rise behind the woods over there, and sweep in
20:39
Speaker 1: a great curve through the sky and seem to set
20:41
Speaker 1: again beyond the hill. But it would be just as
20:44
Speaker 1: easy to preserve the same mathematical relations by regarding the
20:48
Speaker 1: moon as the center of the circle, and the curve
20:50
Speaker 1: described by some such object as the cow. She threw
20:54
Speaker 1: her head back and looked at him with eyes blazing
20:57
Speaker 1: with laughter that was not in any way mockery, but
21:00
Speaker 1: a childish delight at the crowning coincidence of a fairy
21:03
Speaker 1: tale splendid She cried, so the cow really does jump
21:07
Speaker 1: over the moon. Green put up his hand to his hair,
21:11
Speaker 1: and after a short silence, said, suddenly, like a man
21:15
Speaker 1: recalling a recondite Greek quotation, why I've heard that somewhere
21:21
Speaker 1: there was something else. The little dog laughed. Then something happened,
21:27
Speaker 1: which was, in the world of ideas, much more dramatic
21:30
Speaker 1: than the fact that the little dog laughed. The professor
21:33
Speaker 1: of astronomy laughed. If the world of things had corresponded
21:37
Speaker 1: to the world of ideas, the leaves of the apple
21:40
Speaker 1: tree might have curled up in fear, or the birds
21:43
Speaker 1: dropped out of the sky. It was rather as if
21:45
Speaker 1: the cow had laughed. Following on that curt and uncouth
21:50
Speaker 1: noise was a silence. And then the hand he had
21:53
Speaker 1: raised to his head abruptly rent off his big blue
21:56
Speaker 1: spectacles and showed his staring blue eyes. He looked boyish
22:01
Speaker 1: and even babyish. I wondered whether you always wore them,
22:05
Speaker 1: she said, I should think they made that moon of
22:08
Speaker 1: yours look blue. Isn't there a proverb or something about
22:12
Speaker 1: a thing happening once in a blue moon? He threw
22:16
Speaker 1: the great goggles on the ground and broke them. Good gracious,
22:20
Speaker 1: she exclaimed, you seem to have taken quite a dislike
22:24
Speaker 1: to them.
22:24
Speaker 2: All of a sudden.
22:25
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to wear them till, well,
22:29
Speaker 1: till all is blue, as they say. He shook his head.
22:33
Speaker 1: All is beautiful, he said, you are beautiful. The young
22:37
Speaker 1: woman was normally very lucid and decisive in dealing with
22:40
Speaker 1: gentlemen who made remarks of that kind, especially when she
22:44
Speaker 1: concluded that the gentlemen were not gentlemen. But for some reason,
22:49
Speaker 1: in this case, it never occurred to her that she
22:51
Speaker 1: needed defense, possibly because the other parties seemed more defenseless
22:56
Speaker 1: than indefensible. She said nothing, but the other parties set
23:01
Speaker 1: a great deal, and his remarks did not grow more
23:05
Speaker 1: rational at that moment. Far away in their inn parlor
23:09
Speaker 1: in the neighboring town Hood and Crane and the Fellowship
23:12
Speaker 1: of the Longbow were actually discussing with considerable interest the
23:16
Speaker 1: meaning and possibilities of the new astronomical theory. In Bath,
23:21
Speaker 1: the lecture hall was being prepared for the exposition of
23:24
Speaker 1: the theory. The theorist had forgotten all about it. I've
23:29
Speaker 1: been thinking a good deal Hilary Pierce was saying about
23:32
Speaker 1: that astronomical fellow who was going to lecture in Bath
23:35
Speaker 1: to night. It seemed to me somehow that he was
23:38
Speaker 1: a kindred spirit, and that sooner or later we were
23:41
Speaker 1: bound to get mixed up with him, or he was
23:43
Speaker 1: bound to get mixed up with us. I don't say
23:46
Speaker 1: it's always very comfortable to get mixed up with us.
23:49
Speaker 1: I feel in my bones that there's going to be
23:50
Speaker 1: a big row soon. I feel as if I consulted
23:54
Speaker 1: an astrologer, as if Green were the merlin of our
23:56
Speaker 1: round table. Anyhow, the astrologer has an inch resting astronomical theory. Why,
24:03
Speaker 1: inquired Wilding White, with some surprise, what have you got
24:06
Speaker 1: to do with his theory? Because answered the young man.
24:10
Speaker 1: I understand his astronomical theory a good deal better than
24:13
Speaker 1: he thinks I do. And let me tell you his
24:16
Speaker 1: astronomical theory is an astronomical allegory, an allegory, repeated crane.
24:22
Speaker 1: What of an allegory of us, said Pierce, And as
24:26
Speaker 1: with many an allegory, we've acted it without knowing it.
24:30
Speaker 1: I realized something about our history when he was talking
24:33
Speaker 1: that I don't think i'd ever thought of before. What
24:36
Speaker 1: in the world are you talking about, demanded the colonel.
24:39
Speaker 1: His theory, said Pierce, in a meditative manner, has got
24:43
Speaker 1: something to do with moving objects being really stationary, and
24:48
Speaker 1: stationary objects being really moving. Well, you always talk of
24:53
Speaker 1: me as if I were a moving object, heart breaking object, sometimes,
24:57
Speaker 1: assented the colonel with cordial encouragement. I mean, continued Pierce, calmly,
25:03
Speaker 1: that you talk of me as if I were always
25:05
Speaker 1: motoring too fast or flying too far. And what you
25:08
Speaker 1: say of me is pretty much what most people say
25:10
Speaker 1: of you. Most sane people think we all go a
25:14
Speaker 1: jolly lot too far. They think we're a lot of lunatics,
25:17
Speaker 1: out running the constable or looping the loop, and always
25:20
Speaker 1: up to some new nonsense. But when you come to
25:23
Speaker 1: think of it, it's we who always stay where we are,
25:26
Speaker 1: and the rest of the world that's always.
25:28
Speaker 2: Moving and shifting and changing.
25:30
Speaker 1: Yes, said Owen Hood, I begin to have some dim
25:34
Speaker 1: idea of what you are talking about. In all our
25:37
Speaker 1: little adventures, went on the other, we have all of
25:40
Speaker 1: us taken up some definite position and stuck to it,
25:43
Speaker 1: however difficult it might be. That was the whole fun
25:46
Speaker 1: of it. But our critics did not stick to their
25:48
Speaker 1: own position, not even to their own conventional or conservative position.
25:53
Speaker 1: In each one of the stories, it was they who
25:55
Speaker 1: were fickle and we who were fixed. When the colonel
25:59
Speaker 1: said he would eat his hat, he did it. When
26:02
Speaker 1: he found it meant wearing a preposterous hat, he wore it.
26:06
Speaker 1: But his neighbors didn't even stick to their own conviction
26:08
Speaker 1: that the hat was preposterous. Fashion is too fluctuating and
26:13
Speaker 1: sensitive a thing, and before the end half of them
26:16
Speaker 1: were wondering whether they oughtn't to have hats of the
26:18
Speaker 1: same sort. In that affair of the Thames Factory, Hood
26:22
Speaker 1: admired the old landscape, and Hunter admired the old landlords.
26:27
Speaker 1: But Hunter didn't go on admiring the old landlords. He
26:30
Speaker 1: deserted to the new landlords as soon as they got
26:32
Speaker 1: the land. His conservatism was too snobbish to conserve anything.
26:37
Speaker 1: I wanted to import pigs, and I went on importing pigs,
26:40
Speaker 1: though my methods of smuggling might land me to a madhouse.
26:44
Speaker 1: But Enoch Oates, the millionaire, didn't go on importing pork.
26:48
Speaker 1: He went off at once on some new stunt, first
26:51
Speaker 1: on the booming of his purses, and afterwards on the
26:53
Speaker 1: admirable stunt of starting English farms. The business mind isn't steadfast,
26:58
Speaker 1: even when it can be turned the right way. It's
27:00
Speaker 1: too easy to turn. And everything has been like that,
27:04
Speaker 1: down to the little botheration about the elephant. The police
27:08
Speaker 1: began to prosecute mister White, but they soon dropped it
27:11
Speaker 1: when Hood showed them that he had some backing. Don't
27:14
Speaker 1: you see? That's the moral of the whole thing. The
27:17
Speaker 1: modern world is materialistic, but it isn't solid. It isn't
27:21
Speaker 1: hard or stern or ruthless in pursuit of its purpose,
27:25
Speaker 1: or all the things that the newspapers and novels say
27:27
Speaker 1: it is and sometimes actually praise it for being. Materialism
27:32
Speaker 1: isn't like stone it's like mud and liquid mud. At that.
27:37
Speaker 1: There's something in what you say, said owen Hood, and
27:40
Speaker 1: I should be inclined to add something to it. On
27:43
Speaker 1: a rough reckoning of the chances in modern England, I
27:46
Speaker 1: should say the situation is something like this, in that
27:50
Speaker 1: dubious and wavering atmosphere. It is very unlikely there would
27:54
Speaker 1: ever be a revolution or any very vital reform. But
27:58
Speaker 1: if there were, I believe on my soul that it
28:00
Speaker 1: might be successful. I believe everything else would be too
28:04
Speaker 1: weak and wobbly to stand up against it. I suppose
28:08
Speaker 1: that means, said the colonel, that you are going to
28:10
Speaker 1: do something silly, silliest thing I can think of, replied
28:14
Speaker 1: Pierce cheerfully, I'm going to an astronomical lecture. The degree
28:19
Speaker 1: of silliness involved in the experiment can be most compactly
28:23
Speaker 1: and clearly stated in the newspaper report at which the
28:26
Speaker 1: friends of the experimentalists found themselves gazing with more than
28:30
Speaker 1: their usual bewilderment. On the following morning. The colonel, sitting
28:35
Speaker 1: at his club with his favorite daily paper spread out
28:37
Speaker 1: before him, was regarding with a grave wonder a paragraph
28:41
Speaker 1: that began with the following headlines amazing scene at scientific congress.
28:47
Speaker 1: Lecturer goes mad and escapes.
28:50
Speaker 2: A scene equally.
28:51
Speaker 1: Distressing and astonishing took place at the third meeting of
28:54
Speaker 1: the Astronomical Society, now holding its congress at Beth. Professor
28:59
Speaker 1: Oliver Greene, one of the most promising of the younger astronomers,
29:02
Speaker 1: was set down in the syllabus to deliver a lecture
29:05
Speaker 1: on relativity in relation to planetary motion. About an hour
29:10
Speaker 1: before the lecture, however, the authorities received a telegram from
29:13
Speaker 1: Professor green altering the subject of his address on the
29:17
Speaker 1: ground that he had just discovered a new star and
29:20
Speaker 1: wished immediately to communicate his discovery to the scientific world.
29:24
Speaker 1: Great excitement and keen anticipation prevailed at the meeting, but
29:28
Speaker 1: these feelings changed to bewilderment as the lecture proceeded. The
29:33
Speaker 1: lecturer announced without hesitation, the existence of a new planet
29:36
Speaker 1: attached to one of the fixed stars, but proceeded to
29:40
Speaker 1: describe its geological formation and other features with a fantastic
29:44
Speaker 1: exactitude beyond anything yet obtained by way of the spectrum
29:48
Speaker 1: or the telescope. He was understood to say that it
29:52
Speaker 1: produced life in an extravagant form in towering objects which
29:56
Speaker 1: constantly doubled or divided themselves until they ended in flat
29:59
Speaker 1: filling or tongues of a bright green color. He was
30:03
Speaker 1: proceeding to give a still more improbable description of a
30:06
Speaker 1: more mobile, but equally monstrous form of life, resting on
30:10
Speaker 1: four trunks or columns, which swung in rotation and terminating
30:14
Speaker 1: in some curious curved appendages. When a young man in
30:17
Speaker 1: the front row, whose demeanor had shown an increasing levity,
30:21
Speaker 1: called out abruptly, why that's a cow. To this, the professor,
30:26
Speaker 1: abandoning abruptly all pretense of scientific dignity, replied by shouting
30:31
Speaker 1: in a voice like thunder. Yes, of course it's a cow,
30:35
Speaker 1: and you fellows would never have noticed a cow even
30:37
Speaker 1: if she jumped over the moon. The unfortunate professor then
30:41
Speaker 1: began to rave in the most incoherent manner, throwing his
30:45
Speaker 1: arms about and shouting aloud that he and his fellow
30:47
Speaker 1: scientists were all a pack of noodles who had never
30:51
Speaker 1: looked at the world they were walking on, which contained
30:54
Speaker 1: the most miraculous things. But the latter part of his remarks,
30:58
Speaker 1: which appeared to be an entirely irrelevant outburst in praise
31:01
Speaker 1: of the beauty of woman were interrupted by the chairmen
31:04
Speaker 1: and the officials of the Congress, who called for medical
31:07
Speaker 1: and constabulary interference. No less a person than Sir Horace Hunter,
31:13
Speaker 1: who although best known as a psychophysiologist, has taken all
31:17
Speaker 1: knowledge for his province and was present to show his
31:20
Speaker 1: interest in astronomical progress, was able to certify on the
31:24
Speaker 1: spot that the unfortunate green was clearly suffering from dementia,
31:28
Speaker 1: which was immediately corroborated by a local doctor, so that
31:32
Speaker 1: the unhappy man might be removed without further scandal. At
31:36
Speaker 1: this point, however, a still more extraordinary development took place.
31:41
Speaker 1: The young man in the front row, who had several
31:43
Speaker 1: times interrupted the proceedings with irrelevant remarks, sprang to his
31:47
Speaker 1: feet and loudly declaring that Professor Greene was the only
31:51
Speaker 1: sane man in the Congress, rushed at the group surrounding him,
31:55
Speaker 1: violently hurled Sir Horace Hunter from the platform, and with
31:59
Speaker 1: the assistance of a friend and fellow rioter, managed to
32:02
Speaker 1: recapture the lunatic from the doctors and the police and
32:05
Speaker 1: carry him outside the building. Those pursuing the fugitives found
32:09
Speaker 1: themselves at first confronted with a new mystery in the
32:12
Speaker 1: form of their complete disappearance. It has since been discovered
32:16
Speaker 1: that they actually escaped by aeroplane, the young man, whose
32:20
Speaker 1: name is said to be Pierce, being a well known
32:22
Speaker 1: aviator formerly connected with the Flying Corps. The other young
32:26
Speaker 1: man who assisted him and acted as pilot has not
32:29
Speaker 1: yet been identified. Night closed, and the stars stood out
32:35
Speaker 1: over Dale's farm, and the telescope pointed at the stars
32:38
Speaker 1: in vain. Its giant lenses had vainly mirrored the moon
32:43
Speaker 1: of which its owner had spoken in so vain a fashion.
32:46
Speaker 1: But its owner did not return. Miss Dale was rather
32:50
Speaker 1: unaccountably troubled by his absence, and mentioned it once or twice.
32:55
Speaker 1: After all, as her family said, it was very natural
32:58
Speaker 1: that he should go to a hotel and bath for
33:00
Speaker 1: the night, especially if the revels of roistering astronomers were
33:04
Speaker 1: long and late. It's no affair of ours, said the
33:07
Speaker 1: farmer's wife cheerfully. He is not a child. But the
33:11
Speaker 1: farmer's daughter was not quite so sure on the point.
33:15
Speaker 1: Next morning, she rose even earlier than usual and went
33:19
Speaker 1: about her ordinary tasks, which, by some accident or other,
33:23
Speaker 1: seemed to look more ordinary than usual in the blank
33:27
Speaker 1: morning hours. It was perhaps natural that her mind should
33:30
Speaker 1: go back to the previous afternoon, when the conduct of
33:33
Speaker 1: the astronomer could, by no means be dismissed as ordinary.
33:38
Speaker 1: It's all very well to say he's not a child,
33:41
Speaker 1: she said to herself. I wish I were as certain
33:44
Speaker 1: he's not an idiot. If he goes to a hotel,
33:47
Speaker 1: they'll cheat him. The more angular and prosaic her own
33:51
Speaker 1: surroundings seemed in the daylight, the more doubts she felt
33:55
Speaker 1: about the probable fate of the moon struck gentleman who
33:58
Speaker 1: looked at a blue moon through his blue spectacles. She
34:02
Speaker 1: wondered whether his family or his friends were generally responsible
34:05
Speaker 1: for his movements, For really, he must be a little dotty.
34:10
Speaker 1: She had never heard him talk about his family, and
34:12
Speaker 1: she remembered a good many things he had talked about.
34:16
Speaker 1: She had never even seen him talking to a friend,
34:19
Speaker 1: except once to Captain Pierce when they talked about astronomy.
34:23
Speaker 1: But the name of Captain Pierce linked itself up rapidly
34:26
Speaker 1: with other and more relevant suggestions. Captain Pierce lived at
34:31
Speaker 1: the Blue Boar on the other side of the Down,
34:34
Speaker 1: having been married a year or two before to the
34:36
Speaker 1: daughter of the innkeeper, who was an old friend of
34:39
Speaker 1: the daughter of the farmer. They had been to the
34:42
Speaker 1: same school in the neighboring provincial town, and had once been,
34:46
Speaker 1: as the phrase goes, inseparable. Perhaps friends ought to pass
34:51
Speaker 1: through the phase in which they are inseparable to reach
34:54
Speaker 1: the phase in which they can safely be separated. Joan
34:58
Speaker 1: might know something about it, she said to herself. At
35:02
Speaker 1: least her husband might know. She turned back into the
35:05
Speaker 1: kitchen and began to rout things out for breakfast. When
35:09
Speaker 1: she had done everything she could think of doing for
35:11
Speaker 1: a family that had not yet put in an appearance,
35:14
Speaker 1: she went out again into the garden and found herself
35:17
Speaker 1: at the same gate, staring at the steep, wooded hill
35:20
Speaker 1: that lay between the farm and the valley of the
35:23
Speaker 1: Blue Boar. She thought of harnessing the pony, and then
35:27
Speaker 1: went walking rather restlessly along the road over the hill.
35:31
Speaker 1: On the map, it was only a few miles to
35:34
Speaker 1: the Blue Boar, and she was easily capable of walking
35:37
Speaker 1: ten times the distance. But maps, like many other scientific documents,
35:43
Speaker 1: are very inaccurate. The ridge that ran between the two
35:46
Speaker 1: valleys was relatively to that rolling plain as definite as
35:50
Speaker 1: a range of mountains. The path through the dark wood
35:54
Speaker 1: that lay just beyond the farm began like a lane,
35:57
Speaker 1: and then seemed to go up like a ladder. By
36:01
Speaker 1: the time she had scaled it under its continuous canopy
36:04
Speaker 1: of low spreading trees, she had the sensation of having
36:07
Speaker 1: walked for a long time. And when the ascent ended,
36:11
Speaker 1: with a gap in the trees and a blank space
36:13
Speaker 1: of sky, she looked over the edge like one looking
36:17
Speaker 1: into another world. Mister Enoch Oates, in his more expensive moments,
36:24
Speaker 1: had been known to allude to what he called God's
36:26
Speaker 1: great prairies. Mister Rosenbaum Low, having come to London from
36:32
Speaker 1: or through Johannesburg, often referred in his imperialistic speeches to
36:37
Speaker 1: the illimitable velt. But neither the American prairie nor the
36:42
Speaker 1: African Velt really looked any larger, or could look any larger,
36:47
Speaker 1: than a wide English veil seen from a low English hill.
36:52
Speaker 2: Nothing can be.
36:53
Speaker 1: More distant than the distance the horizon, or the line
36:57
Speaker 1: drawn by heaven a crossed the vision of man. Nothing
37:01
Speaker 1: is so illimitable as that limit within our narrow island.
37:06
Speaker 1: There is a whole series of such infinities, as if
37:09
Speaker 1: the island itself could contain seven seas. As she looked
37:14
Speaker 1: out over that new landscape, the soul seemed to be
37:17
Speaker 1: slaked and satisfied with immensity, and by a paradox, to
37:22
Speaker 1: be filled at last with emptiness. All things seemed not
37:27
Speaker 1: only great, but growing in greatness. She could fancy that
37:32
Speaker 1: the tall trees standing up in the sunlight grew taller
37:35
Speaker 1: while she looked at them.
37:37
Speaker 2: The sun was.
37:38
Speaker 1: Rising, and it seemed as if the whole world rose
37:41
Speaker 1: with it. Even the dome of Heaven seemed to be
37:44
Speaker 1: lifting slowly, as if the very sky were a skirt
37:48
Speaker 1: drawn up and disappearing into the altitudes of light. The
37:53
Speaker 1: vast hollow below her was colored as variously as a
37:56
Speaker 1: map in an atlas. Fields of grass or grain or
38:00
Speaker 1: red earth seemed so far away that they might have
38:03
Speaker 1: been the empires and kingdoms of a world newly created.
38:08
Speaker 1: But she could already see on the brow of a hill,
38:10
Speaker 1: above the pine woods, the pale scar of the quarry,
38:14
Speaker 1: and below it, the glittering twist in the river where
38:17
Speaker 1: stood the inn of the blue boar. As she drew
38:21
Speaker 1: nearer and nearer to it, she could see more and
38:24
Speaker 1: more clearly a green triangular field with tiny black dots
38:29
Speaker 1: which were little black pigs, and another smaller dot, which
38:33
Speaker 1: was a child. Something like a wind behind her or
38:37
Speaker 1: within her, that had driven her over the hills, seemed
38:41
Speaker 1: to sweep all the long lines of that landslide of
38:44
Speaker 1: a landscape, so that they pointed to that spot. As
38:49
Speaker 1: the path dropped to the level, and she began to
38:51
Speaker 1: walk by farms and villages, the storm in her mind
38:55
Speaker 1: began to settle, and she recovered the reasonable prudence with
38:59
Speaker 1: which she had pott about her own farm. She even
39:03
Speaker 1: felt some responsibility and embarrassment about troubling her friend by
39:07
Speaker 1: coming on so vague an errand, but she told herself
39:11
Speaker 1: convincingly enough that after all she was justified. One would
39:15
Speaker 1: not normally be alarmed about a strayed lodger as if
39:18
Speaker 1: he were a lion escaped from a menagerie. But she had,
39:22
Speaker 1: after all, very good reason for regarding this lion as
39:25
Speaker 1: rather a fearful wild fowl. His way of talking had
39:29
Speaker 1: been so eccentric that everybody for miles round would have agreed,
39:33
Speaker 1: if they had heard him, that he had a tile loose.
39:37
Speaker 1: She was very glad they had not heard him, but
39:40
Speaker 1: their imaginary opinion fortified her own. They had a duty
39:44
Speaker 1: in common humanity. They could not let a poor gentleman
39:48
Speaker 1: of doubtful sanity disappear without further inquiry. She entered the
39:53
Speaker 1: inn with a firm step and hailed her friend with
39:56
Speaker 1: something of that hearty cheerfulness that is so unpopular in
39:59
Speaker 1: the early She was rather younger, and by nature rather
40:04
Speaker 1: more exuberant than Joan, and Joan had already felt the
40:08
Speaker 1: drag and concentration of children. But Joan had not lost
40:12
Speaker 1: her rather steely sense of humor, and she heard the
40:15
Speaker 1: main facts of her friend's difficulty with a vigilant smile.
40:19
Speaker 1: We should rather like to know what has happened, said
40:22
Speaker 1: the visitor, with vague carelessness. If anything unpleasant had happened,
40:26
Speaker 1: people might even blame us when we knew he was
40:29
Speaker 1: like that? Like what, asked Joan, smiling, Why a bit off,
40:34
Speaker 1: I suppose, we must say, answered the other. The things
40:38
Speaker 1: he said to me about cows and trees and having
40:41
Speaker 1: found a new star were really well, it's rather lucky
40:44
Speaker 1: you came to see me, said Joan quietly, for I
40:48
Speaker 1: don't believe you'd have found anybody else on the face
40:50
Speaker 1: of the earth. Who knows exactly where he is now?
40:54
Speaker 1: And where is he? Well, he's not on the face
40:57
Speaker 1: of the earth, said Joan Hardy. You don't mean he's dead,
41:03
Speaker 1: asked the other in an unnatural voice. I mean he's
41:06
Speaker 1: up in the air, said Joan. Or what is often
41:09
Speaker 1: much the same thing he is with My husband, Hillary
41:13
Speaker 1: rescued him when they were just going to nab him,
41:15
Speaker 1: and carried him off in an aeroplane. He says, they'd
41:18
Speaker 1: better hide in the clouds for a bit, you know
41:20
Speaker 1: the way he talks. Of course, they do come down
41:23
Speaker 1: every now and then.
41:24
Speaker 2: When it's safe.
41:25
Speaker 1: Escaped, nabbed him safe ejaculated the other young woman with
41:30
Speaker 1: round eyes. What in the world does it all mean, well,
41:34
Speaker 1: replied her friend. He seems to have said the same
41:38
Speaker 1: sort of things that he said to you to a
41:40
Speaker 1: whole roomful of scientific men at Bath. And of course
41:44
Speaker 1: the scientific men all said he was mad. I suppose
41:47
Speaker 1: that's what scientific.
41:48
Speaker 2: Men are for.
41:49
Speaker 1: So they were just going to take him away to
41:51
Speaker 1: an asylum. When Hilary, the Farmer's daughter rose in a
41:55
Speaker 1: glory of rage that might have seemed to lift the roof,
41:58
Speaker 1: as the great sunrise had seemed to live the sky,
42:01
Speaker 1: Take em away, she cried. How dare they talk about
42:05
Speaker 1: such things? How dare they say he is mad? It's
42:08
Speaker 1: they who must be mad to say such stuff. Why
42:11
Speaker 1: he's got more brains in his boots than they have,
42:13
Speaker 1: And all their old, silly bald heads.
42:14
Speaker 2: Knocked together, and i'd like to knock em together.
42:18
Speaker 1: Why they'd all smash like eggshells, And he's got a
42:20
Speaker 1: head like cast iron. Don't you know he's beaten all
42:23
Speaker 1: the old duffers at their own business of stars and things.
42:27
Speaker 1: I expect they're all jealous. It's just what I should
42:30
Speaker 1: have expected of them. The fact that she was entirely
42:33
Speaker 1: unacquainted with the names and possibly the existence of these
42:37
Speaker 1: natural philosophers did not arrest the vigorous word painting with
42:41
Speaker 1: which she completed their portraits. Nasty, spiteful old men with whiskers,
42:45
Speaker 1: she said, all bunched together like so many spiders, and
42:48
Speaker 1: weaving dirty cobwebs to catch their betters. Of course, it's
42:52
Speaker 1: all a conspiracy, just because they're all mad and hate
42:55
Speaker 1: anybody who's quite sane. So you think he's quite sane,
42:59
Speaker 1: asked her hostess gravely. Saane, what do you mean of course,
43:03
Speaker 1: he's quite sane, retorted Marjorie Dale with a mountainous magnanimity.
43:09
Speaker 1: Joan was silent. Then, after a pause, she said, well,
43:15
Speaker 1: Hillary has taken his case in hand, and your friends
43:17
Speaker 1: safe for the present. Hillary generally brings things off, however
43:21
Speaker 1: queer they sound, and I don't mind telling you in
43:24
Speaker 1: confidence that he's bringing that and a good many other
43:27
Speaker 1: things off, rather big things just now. You can't keep
43:31
Speaker 1: him from fighting whatever you do, and he seems to
43:34
Speaker 1: be out just now to fight everybody. So I shouldn't
43:37
Speaker 1: wonder if you saw all your old gentleman's heads knock together.
43:40
Speaker 1: After all, there are rather big preparations going on. That
43:45
Speaker 1: friend of his named Blair is forever going and coming
43:48
Speaker 1: with his balloons and things. And I believe something will
43:51
Speaker 1: happen soon on a pretty large scale, perhaps all over England,
43:56
Speaker 1: will it? Asked miss Dale in an absent minded manner,
43:59
Speaker 1: for she was sadly deficient in civic and political sense.
44:03
Speaker 1: Is that your Tommy out there? And they talked about
44:07
Speaker 1: the child, and then about a hundred entirely trivial things,
44:10
Speaker 1: for they understood each other perfectly. And if there are
44:14
Speaker 1: still things the reader fails to understand. If, as seems
44:18
Speaker 1: almost incredible, there are things that he wishes to understand,
44:22
Speaker 1: then it can only be at the heavy price of
44:25
Speaker 1: studying the story of the unprecedented architecture of Commander Blair.
44:29
Speaker 1: And with that it is comforting to know the story
44:32
Speaker 1: of all these things will be drawing near its explanation
44:35
Speaker 1: and its end. End of chapter six