Latest / Classic Science Fiction Books / 11 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton

Transcript

11 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Classic Science Fiction Books

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven, Vegetarianism in the drawing room. The company that
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: assembled to listen to the profit of the Moon on
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the next occasion of his delivering any formal address was
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: much more select than the comparatively mixed and middle class
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: society of the simple souls. Miss Browning and her sister,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: missus Mackintosh were indeed present, for Lord Ivywood had practically
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: engaged them both as private secretaries and kept them pretty
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: busy too. There was also mister Levison, because Lord Ivywood
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: believed in his organizing power, and also mister Hibbs because
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: mister Leverson believed in his political judgment whenever he could
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: discover what it was. Mister Levison had straight, dark hair
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and looked nervous. Mister Hibbs had straight fair hair and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: also looked nervous. But the rest of the company were
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: more of Ivywood's own world, or the world of high
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: finance with which it mixes both here and on the continent.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Lord Ivywood welcomed with something approaching to warmth, a distinguished
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: foreign diplomatist who was indeed none other than the silent
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: German representative who had sat beside him in that last
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: conference on the island of the Olives. Doctor Gluck was
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: no longer in his quiet black suit, but wore an
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: ornate diplomatic uniform with a sword and Prussian, Austrian or
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Turkish orders, for he was going on from Ivywood to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a function at court. But his curl of red lips,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: his screw of black mustache, and his unanswering almond eyes
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: had no more changed than the face of a wax
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: figure in a barber's shop window. The prophet had also
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: effected an improvement in his dress when he had orated
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: on the sands. His costume, except for the fez, was
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the shabby but respectable costume of any rather unsuccessful English clerk.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: But now that he had come among aristocrats who petted
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: their souls as they did their senses, there must be
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: no such incongruity. He must be a proper fresh picked
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: oriental tulip or lotus. So he wore long flowing robes
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of white, relieved here and there by flame colored threads
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of tracery, and round his head was a turban of
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a kind of pale golden green. He had to look
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: as if he had come flying across Europe on the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: magic carpet or fallen a moment before from his paradise
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: in the moon. The ladies of Lord ivy Wood's world
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: were much as we have already found them. Lady Enid
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Wimpole still overwhelmed her earnest and timid face with a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: tremendous costume that was more like a procession than a dress.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It looked rather like the funeral procession of Aubrey Beardsley.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Lady Joan Brett still looked like a very beautiful Spaniard
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: with no illusions left about her castle in Spain. The
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: large and resolute lady who had refused to ask any
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: questions at Messizra's earlier lecture, and who was known as
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Lady Crump, the distinguished feminist, still had the air of
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: being so full and bursting with questions fatal to man
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: as to have passed the speaking and reached the speechless
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: stage of hostility. Throughout the proceedings, she contributed nothing but
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: bursting silence and a malevolent eye. And Old Lady Ivywood,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: under the oldest and finest lace and the oldest and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: finest manners, had a look like death on her, which
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: can often be seen in the parents of pure intellectuals.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: She had that face of a lost mother that is
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: more pathetic than the face of a lost child. And
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: what are you going to delight us with today, Lady
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Enid was asking of the prophet. My lecture, answered Massizra
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: gravely is on the pig. It was part of a simplicity,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: really respectable in him that he never saw any incongruity
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in the arbitrary and isolated texts or symbols out of
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: which he spun his thousand insane theories. Lady Enid endured
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the impact of this singular subject for debate without losing
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: that expression of wistful sweetness which she wore on principle
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: when talking to such people. The pig, he is a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: large subject, continued the prophet, making curves in the air
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: as if embracing some particularly prized specimen. He includes many subjects.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: It is to me very strange that the Christians should
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: so laugh and be surprised, because we hold ourselves to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: be defiled by pork, we and also another of the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: peoples of the book. But surely you Christians yourselves consider
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the pig as a manner of pollution, since it is
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: your most usual expression of your despising of your very
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: great dislike. You say swa, my dear lady, you do
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: not say animals far more unpopular, such as the alligator
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I see, said the lady. How wonderful if you are annoyed,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: went on the encouraged and excited gentleman. If you are
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: annoyed with anyone with a what you say a lady's maid,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you do not say to her horse, You do not
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: say to her camel Ah. No, said Lady Enid, earnestly,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: pig of a lady's maid you see in your colloquial English,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: continued the prophet triumphantly. And yet this great and awful pig,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: this monster, whose very name, when whispered, you think, will
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: wither all your enemies, you allow, my dear lady to approach.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Yet closer to you, you incorporate this great pig in
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the substance of your own person. Lady Enid Wimpole was
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: looking a little dazed at last at this description of
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: her habits, and Joan gave Lord Ivywood a hint that
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the lecturer had better be transferred to his legitimate sphere
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of lecturing. Ivy Wood led the way into a larger
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: room that was full of ranked chairs, with a sort
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of lectern at the other end, and flanked on all
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: four sides with tables laden with all kinds of refreshments.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: It was typical of the strange, half fictitious enthusiasm and
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: curiosity of that world that one long table was set
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: out entirely with vegetarian foods, especially of an Eastern sort,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: like a table spread in the desert for a rather
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: fastidious Indian hermit, but that tables covered with game, paddies, lobster,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and champagne were equally provided and very much more frequented.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Even mister Hibbs, who would honestly have thought entering a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: public house more disgraceful than entering a brothel, could not
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: connect any conception of disgrace with Lord Ivywood's champagne, For
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the purpose of the lecture was not wholly devoted to
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the great and awful pig, and the purpose of the
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: meeting even less. Lord Ivywood, the white furnace of whose
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: mind was always full of new fancies hardening into ambitions,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: wanted to have a debate on the diet of East
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and West, and felt that Miss Eystra might very appropriately
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: open with an account of the Moslem veto on pork
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: or other coarse forms of flesh food. He reserved it
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: to himself to speak. Second, the prophet began, indeed, with
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: some of his dizziest flights. He informed the company that
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: they the English had always gone in hidden terror and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: loathing of the pig as a sacred symbol of evil.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: He proved it by the common English custom of drying
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a pig with one's eyes shut. Lady Joan smiled, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: yet she asked herself, in a doubt that had been
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: darkening round her about many modern things lately, whether it
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was really much more fanciful than many things the scientists
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: told her as the traces of marriage by capture, which
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: they found in that ornamental and even frivolous being the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: best man. He said that the dawn of greater enlightenment
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: is shown in the use of the word gammon, which
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: still expresses disgust at the poor sign image, but no
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: longer fear of it, but rather a rational disdain and disbelief. Rowley,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: said the prophet solemnly, and then, after a long pause,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Holy Gammon and spinach. Lady Joan smiled again, but again
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: asked herself if it was much more far fetched than
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a history book she had read which proved the unpopularity
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of Catholicism in Tudor times. From the word hocus pocus,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: he got into a most amazing labyrinth of philology between
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the read primeval sins of the first pages of Genesis
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and the common English word ham. But again Joan wondered
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: whether it was much wilder than the other things she
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: had heard said about primitive man by people who had
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: never seen him. He suggested that the Irish were set
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: to keep pigs because they were a low and defiled cast,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: and the serfs of the pig scorning Saxon and Joan
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: thought it was about as sensible as what the dear
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: old Archdeacon had said about Ireland years ago, which had
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: caused an irishman of her acquaintance to play the Shan
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: van Vaugh and then smashed the piano. Joan Brett had
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: been thoughtful for the last few days. It was partly
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: due to the scene in the turret, where she had
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: struck a sensitive and artistic side of Philip Ivywood she
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: had never seen before, and partly to disturbing news of
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: her mother's health, which, though not menacing, made her feel
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: hypothetically how isolated she was in the world. On all
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: previous occasions she had merely enjoyed the mad lecturer. Now
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: at the reading desk today, she felt a strange desire
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: to analyze him and imagine how a man could be
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: so connected and so convinced, and yet so wildly wide
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of the mark. As she listened carefully, looking at the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: hands in her lap, she began to think she understood
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the lecturer did really try to prove that the Porcigne
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: image had never been used in English history or literature
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: except in contempt. And the lecturer really did know a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: very great deal about English history and literature, much more
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: than she did, much more than the aristocrats round her did.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: But she noticed that in every case what he knew
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: was a fragmentary fact. In every case, what he did
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: not know was the truth behind the fact. What he
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: did not know was the atmosphere. What he did not
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: know was the tradition. She found herself ticking off the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: cases like counts in an indictment. Miss cisra ammon knew
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: what next to none of the English present knew that
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Richard the third was called a bore by an eighteenth
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: century poet and a hog by a fifteenth century poet.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: What he did not know was the habit of Sport
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and of Harold Ree. He did not know what Joan
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: knew instantly, though she had never thought of it before
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: in her life, that beasts courageous and hard to kill
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: are noble beasts by the law of chivalry. Therefore the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: bore was a noble beast and a common crest for
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: great captains. Miss Cisra tried to show that Richard had
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: only been called a pig after he was called pork
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: at Bosworth. Missisra Ammon knew what next to none of
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the English present knew that there never was such a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: person as Lord Bacon. The phrase is a falsification of
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: what should be Lord Verulam or Lord Saint Albans. What
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: he did not know was exactly what Joan did know,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: though it had never crossed her mind till that moment,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: that when all is said and done, a title is
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: a sort of joke, while a surname is a serious thing.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Bacon was a gentleman, and his name was Bacon, whatever
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: titles he took. But Miss Eysra seriously tried to prove
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that Bacon was a term of abuse applied to him
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: during his unpopularity or after his fall. Miss eysra Amman
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: knew what next to None of the English present knew
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that the poet Shelley had a friend called Hog who
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: treated him on one occasion with grave treachery. He instantly
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: tried to prove that the man was only called Hog
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: because he had treated Shelley with grave treachery, and he
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: actually adduced the fact that another poet practically contemporary was
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: called Hog, as completing the connection with Shelley. What he
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: did not know was just what Joan had always known
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: without knowing it, the kind of people concerned the traditions
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: of aristocrats like the Shelleys, or of borderers like the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Ettric Shepherd. The lecturer concluded with a passage of impenetrable
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: darkness about pig iron and pigs of lead, which Joan
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: did not even venture to understand. She could only say
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that if it did not mean that some day our
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: diet might become so refined that we ate lead and iron,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: she could form no fancy of what it did mean.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Can Philip Ivy would believe this kind of thing? She
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: asked herself, and even as she did so Philip Ivy
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: would rose he had as Pitt and Gladstone had an
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: impromptu classicism of diction, his words wheeling and deploying into
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: their proper places, like a well disciplined army in its
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: swiftested bands. And it was not long before Joan perceived
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: that the last phase of the picture, obscure and monstrous
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: as it seemed, gave ivy way, but exactly the opening
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: he wanted. Indeed, she felt no doubt that he had
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: arranged for it beforehand. It is within my memory, said
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Lord ivy Wood, though it need in no case have
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: encumbered yours that when it was my duty to precede
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the admired lecturer, whom I now feel it a privilege
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: even to follow, I submitted a suggestion which, however simple,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: would appear to many paradoxical. I affirmed or implied the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: view that the religion of Mahomet was, in a peculiar sense,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: a religion of progress. This is so contrary not only
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: to historical convention, but to common platitude, that I shall
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: find no ground either of surprise or censure. If it
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: takes a perceptible time before it sinks into the mind
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of the English public. But I think, ladies and gentlemen,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that this period is notably abbreviated by the remarkable exposition
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: which we have heard today. For this question of the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: attitude of Islam toward food affords as excellent an example
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of its special mode of progressive purification as the more
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: popular example of its attitude toward drink. For it illustrates
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that principle which I have ventured to call the principle
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of the crescent, the principle of perpetual growth toward an
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: implied and infinite perfection. The great religion of Islam does
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: not of itself forbid the eating of flesh foods, But
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in accordance with that principle of growth, which is its life,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it has pointed the way to a perfection not yet
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: perhaps fully attainable by our nature. It has taken a
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: plain and strong example of the dangers of meat eating,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and hung up the repellent carcass as a warning and
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: a sign in the gradual emergence of mankind from a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: gross and sanguinary mode of sustenance. The sumite has led
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the way he has led, as it were, a symbolic
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: embargo upon the beast typical the beast of beasts, with
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the instinct of the true mystic he selected for exemption
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: from such cannibal feasts. The creature which appeals to both
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: sides of the higher vegetarian ethic. The pig is at
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: once the creature whose helplessness most moves our pity and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: whose ugliness most repels our taste. It would be foolish
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to affirm that no difficulty arises out of the different
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: stages of moral evolution in which the different races find themselves.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Thus it is constantly said, and such things are not
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: said without some excuse in document or incident, that followers
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of the Prophet have specialized in the arts of war,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and have come into a contact not invariably friendly with
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: those Hindus of India who have specialized in the arts
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of peace. In the same way, the Hindus, it must
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: be confessed, have been almost as much in advance of
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Islam in the question of meat as Islam is in
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: advance of Christianity in the matter of drink. It must
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: be remembered again and again, ladies and gentlemen, that every
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: allegation we have of any difference between Hindu and Moslem
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: comes through a Christian channel, and is therefore tainted evidence.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: But in this matter even can we not see the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: perils of disregarding such plain danger signals as the vetoan
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: pork did not an empire nearly slip out of our
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: hands because our hands were greased with cow fat, and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: did not the well of cawnpore brim with blood instead
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of water, because we would not listen to the instinct
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of the Oriental about the shedding of sacred blood. But
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: if it be proposed, with whatever graduation to approach that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: repudiation of flesh food which Buddhism mainly and Islam partly recommends,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: it will always be asked by those who hate the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: very vision of progress, where do you draw the line?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: May I eat oysters? May I eat eggs? May I
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: drink milk? You may you may eat or drink anything
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: essential to your stage of evolution, so long as you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: are evolving toward a clearer and cleaner ideal of bodily life.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: If he said gravely, I may employ a phrase of flippancy,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I would say that you may eat six dozen oysters
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to day, but I should strongly advise five dozen oysters tomorrow,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: For how else has all progress in public or private
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: manners been achieved. Would not the primitive cannibals be surprised
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: at the strange distinction we draw between men and beasts.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: All historians pay high honor to the Hugenots and the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: great Hugenot Prince enri Quatree. None need deny that his
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: aspiration that every Frenchman should have a chicken in his
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: pot was, for the period a high aspiration. It is
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: no disrespect to him that we, mounting to higher levels
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and looking down longer perspectives, consider the chicken, and this
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: August March of Discovery passes figures higher than that of
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Henry of Navarre. I shall always have a high place,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: as Islam has always given a high place to that figure,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: mythical or no which we find presiding over the foundations
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of Christianity. I cannot doubt that the fable, incredible and
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: revolting otherwise, which records the rush of swine into the sea,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: was an allegory of his early realization that a spirit
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: evil indeed does reside in all animals, in so far
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: as they tempt us to devour them. I cannot doubt
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that the prodigal leaving his sins among the swine is
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: another illustration of the great thesis of the prophet of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the Moon. But here also progress and relativity are relentless
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: in their advance, and not a few of us may
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: have risen today to the point of regretting that the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: joyful sounds around the return of the prodigal should be
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: marred by the moaning of a calf. For the rest,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: He who asks us whither we go knows not the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: meaning of progress. If we come at last to live
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: on light, as men said of the chameleon. If some
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: cosmic magic, closed to us now as radium was but
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: recently closed, allows us to transmute the very metals into
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: flesh without breaking into the bloody house of life. We
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: shall know these things when we have achieved them. It
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: is enough for us now if we have achieved a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: spiritual station in which at least the living head we
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: lop has not eyes to reproach us, and the herbs
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: we gather cannot cry against our cruelty. Like the man drake,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Lord Ivywood resumed his seat, his colorless lips still moving.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: By some previous arrangement, probably mister Levison, rose to move
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a motion about vegetarianism. Mister Levison was of opinion that
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the Jewish and Moslem veto on pork had been the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: origin of vegetarianism. He thought it was a great step
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and showed how progressive the creed could be. He thought
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the persecution of the Hindus by Muslims had probably been
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: much exaggerated. He thought our experience in the Indian Mutiny
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: showed we considered the feeling of Easterners too little in
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: such matters. He thought vegetarianism in some ways an advance
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: on Orthodox Christianity. He thought we must be ready for
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: yet further advances. And he sat down, and as he
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: had said, precisely, clause by clause, everything that Lord Ivywood
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: had said. It is needless to say that that nobleman
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: afterward congratulated him on the boldness and originality of his
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: brilliant speech at a similar sort of preconcerted signal. Hibbs, however,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Rose read rather vaguely to his feet to second the motion.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: He rather prided himself on being a man of few
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: words in the vocal sense. He was no orator, as
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Brutus was. It was only with pen in hand in
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: an office lined with works of reference that he could feel,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that sense of confused responsibility. That was the one pleasure
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of his life. But on this occasion he was brighter
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: than usual, partly because he liked being in a lord's house,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: partly because he had never tasted Champagne before, and he
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: felt as if it agreed with him, partly because he
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: saw in the subject of progress an infinite opportunity of
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: splitting hairs. Whatever said Hibbs, with a solemn cough, whatever
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: we may think of the old belief that Moslems have
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: differed from Buddhism in a regrettable way, there can be
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: no doubt the responsibility lay with the Christian churches. Had
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the free churches put their foot down and met Messrs
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: opal Elstein's demand, we should have heard nothing of these
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: old differences between one belief and another. As it was,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: it reminded him of Napoleon. He gave his own opinion
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: for what it was worth. But he was not afraid
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to say, at any cost, even there and in that company,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: that this business of asiatic vegetation had occupied less of
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the time of the Wesleyan Conference than it should have done.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: He would be the last to say, of course, that
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: any one was in any sense to blame. They all
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: knew doctor Coon's qualifications. They all knew as well as
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: he did that a more strenuous social worker than Charles
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Chatter had never rallied the forces of progress. But that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: which was not really an indiscretion might be represented as
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: an indiscretion, and perhaps we had had enough of that
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: just lately. It was all very well to talk about coffee,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: but it should be remembered with no disrespect to those
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: in Canada, to whom we are oh so much that
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: all that happened before eighteen ninety one. No one had
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: less desire to offend our ritualistic friends than he did.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: But he had no hesitation in saying that the question
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: was a question that could be asked. And though no
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: doubt from one point of view, the goats Lady Joan
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: moved sharply in her chair, as if gripped by sudden pain,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: and indeed she had suddenly felt the chronic and recurrent
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: pain of her life. She was brave about bodily pain,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: as are most women, even luxurious women, But the torment
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: that from time to time returned and tore her was
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: one to which many philosophical names have been given. But
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: no name so philosophical as Boradumb. She felt she could
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: not stand a minute more of mister Hibbs. She felt
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: she would die if she heard about the goats from
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: one or any point of view. She slipped from her
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: chair and somehow slid round the corner pretense of seeking
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: one of the tables of refreshment in the new wing.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: She was soon among the new oriental apartments, now almost completed,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: but she took no refreshments, though attenuated tables could still
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: be found here and there. She threw herself on an
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: ottoman and stared toward the empty and elfin turret chamber,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: in which Ivywood had made her understand that he also
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: could thirst for beauty and desire to be at peace.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: He certainly had a poetry of his own, after all,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: a poetry that never touched earth, the poetry of Shelley
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: rather than Shakespeare. His phrase about the fairy turret was true.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It did look like the end of the world. It
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: did seem to teach her that there is always some
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: serene limit. At last, she started in half rose on
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: her elbow with a small laugh. A dog of ludicrous
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: but familiar appearance came shuffling toward her, and she lifted herself.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: In the act of lifting him, she also lifted her
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: head and saw something that seemed to her, in a sense,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: more Christian and catastrophic, very like the end of the world.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven.