Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Tono-Bungay Book 1 Chapter 3 - Parts 4-7

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Tono-Bungay Book 1 Chapter 3 - Parts 4-7 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book, first chapter, third parts four to seven of ton
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Speaker 1: No Bungay. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William Tomco ton
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Speaker 1: O Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book, first chapter, third
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Speaker 1: parts four to seven. Four. I was left, i say,
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Speaker 1: as part of the lock stock and barrel at Wimblehurst,
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Speaker 1: with my new master, a mister Mantel, who plays no
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Speaker 1: part in the progress of this story, except in so
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Speaker 1: far as he effaced my uncle's traces. So soon as
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Speaker 1: the freshness of this new personality faded, I began to
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Speaker 1: find Wimblehurst not only a dull but a lonely place,
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Speaker 1: and to miss my aunt Susan immensely. The advertisements of
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Speaker 1: the summer terms for cough Linctus were removed, the bottles
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Speaker 1: of colored water red, green and yellow restored to their places.
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Speaker 1: The horse announcing veterinary medicine, which my uncle, sizzling all
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Speaker 1: the while, had colored in careful portraiture of a good
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Speaker 1: Wood favorite, re whitened, and I turned myself even more
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Speaker 1: resolutely than before to Latin. Until the passing of my
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Speaker 1: preliminary examination enabled me to drop that and then to
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Speaker 1: mathematics and science. There were classes in electricity and magnetism
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Speaker 1: at the Grammar School. I took a little elementary prize
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Speaker 1: in that in my first year, and a metal in
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Speaker 1: my third, and in chemistry and human physiology and sound,
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Speaker 1: light and heat I did well. There was also a lighter,
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Speaker 1: more discursive subject called physiography, in which one ranged among
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Speaker 1: the sciences and encountered geology as a process of evolution
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Speaker 1: from ea ozoon to eastreet House, and astronomy as a
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Speaker 1: record of celestial movements of the most austere and invariable integrity.
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Speaker 1: I learnt out of badly written, condensed little text books
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Speaker 1: and with the minimum of experiment. But still I learned
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Speaker 1: only thirty years ago. It was, and I remember I
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Speaker 1: learnt of the electric light as an expensive, impracticable toy,
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Speaker 1: the telephone as a curiosity, electric traction as a practical absurdity.
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Speaker 1: There was no argon, no radium, no phagocytes, at least
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Speaker 1: to my knowledge, and aluminium was a dear infrequent metal.
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Speaker 1: The fastest ships in the world went then at nineteen knots,
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Speaker 1: and no one but a lunatic here and there ever
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Speaker 1: thought it possible that men might fly. Many things have
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Speaker 1: happened since then, but the last glance I had of
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Speaker 1: Wimblehurst two years ago remarked no change whatever in its
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Speaker 1: pleasant tranquility. They had not even built any fresh houses,
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Speaker 1: at least not actually in the town, though about the
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Speaker 1: station there had been some building, But it was a
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Speaker 1: good place to do work in for all its quiescence.
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Speaker 1: I was soon beyond the small requirements of the Pharmaceutical
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Speaker 1: Society's examination, and as they do not permit candidates to
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Speaker 1: sit for that until one Aunt twenty, I was presently
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Speaker 1: filling up my time and preventing my studies becoming too
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Speaker 1: desultory by making an attack upon the London University degree
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Speaker 1: of Bachelor of Science, which impressed me then as a
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Speaker 1: very splendid but almost impossible achievement. The degree in Mathematics
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Speaker 1: and Chemistry appealed to me as particularly congenial, albeit giddily inaccessible.
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Speaker 1: I set to work. I had presently to arrange a
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Speaker 1: holiday and go to London to matriculate, and so it
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Speaker 1: was I came upon my aunt and uncle again. In
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Speaker 1: many ways that visit marked an epoch. It was my
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Speaker 1: first impression of London at all. I was then nineteen,
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Speaker 1: and by a conspiracy of chances, my nearest approach to
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Speaker 1: that human wilderness had been my brief visit to Chatham. Chatham,
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Speaker 1: too had been my largest town. So that I got
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Speaker 1: London at last with an exceptional freshness of effect, as
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Speaker 1: the sudden revelation of a whole unsuspected other side to life.
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Speaker 1: I came to it on a dull and smoky day
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Speaker 1: by the Southeastern Railway, and our train was half an
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Speaker 1: hour late, stopping and going on and stopping again. I
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Speaker 1: marked beyond Chiselhurst the growing multitude of villas, and so
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Speaker 1: came stage by stage, through multiplying houses and diminishing inner
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Speaker 1: spaces of market garden and dingy grass, to regions of
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Speaker 1: interlacing railway lines, big factories, gasometers, and wide reeking swamps
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Speaker 1: of dingy little homes, more of them, and more and more,
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Speaker 1: the number of these, and their dinginess and poverty increased.
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Speaker 1: And here rose a great public house, and here a
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Speaker 1: board school, and there a gaunt factory. And away to
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Speaker 1: the east there loomed for a time a queer, incongruous
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Speaker 1: forest of masts and spars. The congestion of houses intensified
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Speaker 1: and piled up presently into tenements. I marveled more and
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Speaker 1: more at this boundless world of dingy people. Whiffs of
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Speaker 1: industrial smell of leather, of brewing drifted into the carriage.
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Speaker 1: The sky darkened. I rumbled thunderously over bridges van crowded streets,
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Speaker 1: peered down on and crossed the Thames with an abrupt
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Speaker 1: a claw of sound. I got an effect of tall warehouses,
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Speaker 1: of gray water, barge crowded, of broad banks of indescribable mud.
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Speaker 1: And then I was in Cannon Street Station, a monstrous,
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Speaker 1: dirty cavern with trains packed across its vast floor, and
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Speaker 1: more porters standing along the platform than I had ever
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Speaker 1: seen in my life before. I alighted with my portmanteau
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Speaker 1: and struggled along, realizing for the first time just how
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Speaker 1: small and weak I could, still, upon occasion feel in
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Speaker 1: this world. I felt an Honor's meddle in electricity and
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Speaker 1: magnetism counted for nothing at all. Afterwards, I drove in
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Speaker 1: a cab down a cannon of rushing street between high warehouses,
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Speaker 1: and peeped up, astonished at the blackened grays of Saint
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Speaker 1: Paul's The traffic of cheapside. It was mostly in horse
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Speaker 1: omnibuses in those days seemed stupendous. Its roar was stupendous.
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Speaker 1: I wondered where the money came from to employ so
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Speaker 1: many cabs. What industry could support the endless, jostling stream
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Speaker 1: of silk headed, frock coated hurrying men. Down a turning
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Speaker 1: I found the Temperance Hotel. Mister Mantel had recommended to me.
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Speaker 1: The porter in a green uniform who took over my
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Speaker 1: portmanteau seemed, I thought, to despise me a good deal.
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Speaker 1: Five matriculation kept me for four full days, and then
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Speaker 1: came an afternoon to spare and I sought out Tottenham
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Speaker 1: Court Road, through a perplexing network of various and crowded streets.
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Speaker 1: But this London was vast, It was endless. It seemed
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Speaker 1: the whole world had changed into packed frontages and hoardings
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Speaker 1: and street spaces. I got there at last and made inquiries,
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Speaker 1: and I found my uncle behind the counter of the pharmacy.
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Speaker 1: He managed an establishment that did not impress me as
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Speaker 1: doing a particularly high class trade. Lord. He said, at
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Speaker 1: the sight of me, I was wanting something to happen.
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Speaker 1: He greeted me warmly. I had grown taller, and he
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Speaker 1: I thought had grown shorter and smaller and rounder. But
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Speaker 1: otherwise he was unchanged. He struck me as being rather shabby,
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Speaker 1: and the silk hat he produced and put on when,
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Speaker 1: after mysterious negotiations in the back premises he achieved his
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Speaker 1: freedom to accompany me was past its first youth, but
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Speaker 1: he was as buoyant and confident as ever. Come to
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Speaker 1: ask me about all that, he cried, I've never written yet, oh,
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Speaker 1: among other things, said I with a sudden regrettable politeness,
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Speaker 1: and waved the topic of his trusteeship to ask after
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Speaker 1: my aunt Susan. We'll have her out of it, he said,
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Speaker 1: Suddenly we'll go somewhere. We don't get you in London
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Speaker 1: every day. It's my first visit. I said, I've never
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Speaker 1: seen London before, and that made him ask me what
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Speaker 1: I thought of it, And the rest of the talk
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Speaker 1: was London, London, to the exclusion of all smaller topics.
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Speaker 1: He took me up the Hampstead Road almost to the
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Speaker 1: Cobden Statue, plunged into some back streets to the left,
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Speaker 1: and came at last to a blistered front door that
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Speaker 1: responded to his latch key. One of a long series
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Speaker 1: of blistered front doors with fat lights and apartment cards above,
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Speaker 1: we found ourselves in a drab colored passage that was
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Speaker 1: not only narrow and dirty, but desolatingly empty. And then
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Speaker 1: he opened a door and revealed my aunt sitting at
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Speaker 1: the window, with a little sewing machine on a bamboo
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Speaker 1: occasional table before her, and work a plum colored walking dress,
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Speaker 1: I judged at its most analytical stage, scattered over the
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Speaker 1: rest of the apartment. At the first glance, I judged
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Speaker 1: my aunt was plumper than she had been, but her
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Speaker 1: complexion was just as fresh, and her China blue eye
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Speaker 1: as bright as in the old days London, she said,
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Speaker 1: didn't get blacks on her. She still cheeked my uncle.
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Speaker 1: I was pleased to find what are you old poking
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Speaker 1: in for at this time? Garrubit, she said when he appeared,
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Speaker 1: and she still looked with a practiced eye for the
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Speaker 1: facetious side of things. When she saw me behind him,
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Speaker 1: she gave a little cry and stood up radiant. Then
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Speaker 1: she became grave. I was surprised at my own emotion
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Speaker 1: in seeing her. She held me at arm's length for
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Speaker 1: a moment a hand on each shoulder and looked at
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Speaker 1: me with a sort of glad scrutiny. She seemed to hesitate,
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Speaker 1: and then pecked little kiss off my cheek. You're a man, George,
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Speaker 1: she said, as she released me, and continued to look
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Speaker 1: at me for a while. Their minage was one of
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Speaker 1: a very common type in London. They occupied what is
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Speaker 1: called the dining room floor of a small house, and
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Speaker 1: they had the use of a little inconvenient kitchen in
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Speaker 1: the basement that had once been scullery. The two rooms,
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Speaker 1: bedroom behind and living room in front, were separated by
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Speaker 1: folding doors that were never now thrown back, and indeed,
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Speaker 1: in the presence of a visitor, not used at all.
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Speaker 1: There was, of course, no bathroom or anything of that
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Speaker 1: sort available, and there was no water supply except to
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Speaker 1: the kitchen below. My aunt did all the domestic work,
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Speaker 1: though she could have afforded to pay for help if
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Speaker 1: the bill of that place had not rendered that inconvenient
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Speaker 1: to the pitch of impossibility. There was no sort of
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Speaker 1: help available except that of indoor servants, for whom she
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Speaker 1: had no accommodation. The furniture was their own. It was
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Speaker 1: partly second hand but on the whole it seemed cheerful
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Speaker 1: to my eye, and my aunt's biased for cheap, gay
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Speaker 1: figured Muslin had found ample score. In many ways, I
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Speaker 1: should think it must have been an extremely inconvenient and
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Speaker 1: crept sort of home. But at the time I took it,
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Speaker 1: as I was taking everything as being there, and in
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Speaker 1: the nature of things, I did not see the oddness
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Speaker 1: of solvent, decent people living in a habitation so clearly
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Speaker 1: neither designed nor adapted for their needs, so wasteful of labor,
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Speaker 1: and so devoid of beauty as this was. And it
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Speaker 1: is only now, as I described this that I find
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Speaker 1: myself thinking of the essential absurdity of an intelligent community
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Speaker 1: living in such makeshift homes. It strikes me now as
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Speaker 1: the next thing to wearing second hand clothes. You see,
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Speaker 1: it was a natural growth part of that system to
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Speaker 1: which Bladesover I hold is the key. There are wide
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Speaker 1: regions of London, miles of streets of houses that appear
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Speaker 1: to have been originally designed for prosperous middle class homes
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Speaker 1: of the early Victorian type. There must have been a
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Speaker 1: perfect fury of such buildings in the thirties, forties and fifties.
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Speaker 1: Street after Street must have been rushed into being Camden
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Speaker 1: Town Way, Pentonville Way, Brompton Way West Kensington Way in
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Speaker 1: the Victoria region and all over the minor suburbs of
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Speaker 1: the South Side. I am doubtful if many of these
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Speaker 1: houses had any long use as the residences of single families.
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Speaker 1: If from the very first almost the tenants did not
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Speaker 1: make makeshift and take lodgers and sublet. They were built
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Speaker 1: with basements in which their servants worked and lived, servants
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Speaker 1: of a more submissive and trogloditic generation who did not
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Speaker 1: mind stairs. The dining room with folding doors, was a
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Speaker 1: little above the ground level, and in that the wholesome
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Speaker 1: boiled and roast with damp boiled potatoes and then pie
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Speaker 1: to follow was consumed, and the numerous family read and
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Speaker 1: worked in the evening. And above was the drawing room,
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Speaker 1: also with folding doors, where the infrequent callers were received.
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Speaker 1: That was the vision at which those industrious builders aimed.
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Speaker 1: Even while these houses were being run up, the threads
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Speaker 1: upon the loom of fate were shaping to abolish altogether
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Speaker 1: the type of household that would have fitted them. Means
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Speaker 1: of transit were developing to carry the moderately prosperous middle
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Speaker 1: class families out of London. Education and factory employment were
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Speaker 1: whittling away at the supply of rough, hard working, obedient
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Speaker 1: girls who would stand the subterranean drudgery of these places.
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Speaker 1: New classes of hard up middle class people, such as
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Speaker 1: my uncle, employees of various types were come into existence,
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Speaker 1: for whom no homes were provided. None of these classes
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Speaker 1: have ideas of what they ought to be, or fit
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Speaker 1: in any legitimate way into the blades over theory that
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Speaker 1: dominates our minds. It was nobody's concern to see them
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Speaker 1: housed under civilized conditions, and the beautiful laws of supply
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Speaker 1: and demand had free play. They had to squeeze in.
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Speaker 1: The landlords came out financially intact from their blundering enterprise.
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Speaker 1: More and more these houses fell into the hands of
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Speaker 1: married artisans or struggling widows, or old servants with savings,
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Speaker 1: who became responsible for the quarterly rent and tried to
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Speaker 1: sweat a living by subletting furnished or unfurnished apartments. I
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Speaker 1: remember now that a poor, gray haired old woman who
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Speaker 1: had an air of having been roused from a nap
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Speaker 1: in the dust bin, came out into the area and
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Speaker 1: looked up at us as we three went out from
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Speaker 1: the front door to see London. Under my uncle's direction.
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Speaker 1: She was the sub letting occupy her. She squeezed out
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Speaker 1: a precarious living by taking the house whole and subletting
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Speaker 1: it in detail. And she made her food, and got
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Speaker 1: the shelter of an attic above and the basement below
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Speaker 1: by the transaction. And if she didn't chance to let
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Speaker 1: steadily out, she went to Popperdom, and some other poor
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Speaker 1: sordid old adventurer tried in her place. It is a
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Speaker 1: foolish community that can house whole classes, useful and helpful,
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Speaker 1: honest and loyal classes in such squalidly unsuitable dwellings. It
15:34
Speaker 1: is by no means the social economy. It seems to
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Speaker 1: use up old women savings and inexperience in order to
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Speaker 1: meet the landlord's demands. But anyone who doubts this thing
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Speaker 1: is going on right up to to day need only
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Speaker 1: spend an afternoon in hunting for lodgings in any of
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Speaker 1: the regions of London I have named. But where has
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Speaker 1: my story got to? My uncle, I say, decided I
15:57
Speaker 1: must be shown London, and out we three ways, and
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Speaker 1: as soon as my aunt had got her hat on
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Speaker 1: to catch all that was left of the day six
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Speaker 1: it pleased my uncle extremely to find I had never
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Speaker 1: seen London before he took possession of the metropolis. Forthwith London, George,
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Speaker 1: he said, takes a lot of understanding. It's a great place,
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Speaker 1: immense the richest town in the world, the biggest port,
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Speaker 1: the greatest manufacturing town, the imperial city, the center of civilization,
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Speaker 1: the heart of the world. See those sandwich men down there,
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Speaker 1: that third one's hat, fair treat. You don't see poverty
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Speaker 1: like that in Wimblehurst, George, and many of them high
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Speaker 1: Oxford honor men too, brought down by drink. It's a
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Speaker 1: wonderful place, George. A whirlpool, a maelstrom, whirls you up
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Speaker 1: and whirls you down. I have a very confused memory
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Speaker 1: of that afternoon's inspection of London. My uncle took us
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Speaker 1: to and fro, showing us over his London, talking erratically,
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Speaker 1: following a rout of his own. Sometimes we were walking,
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Speaker 1: sometimes we were on the tops of great staggering horse omnibuses,
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Speaker 1: in a heaving jumble of traffic, And at one point
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Speaker 1: we had tea in an aerated bread shop. But I
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Speaker 1: remember very distinctly how we passed down Park Lane under
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Speaker 1: an overcast sky, and how my uncle pointed out the
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Speaker 1: house of this child of good fortune, and that with
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Speaker 1: succulent appreciation. I remember too, that as he talked, I
17:34
Speaker 1: would find my aunt watching my face, as if to
17:37
Speaker 1: check the soundness of his talk by my expression. Been
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Speaker 1: in love yet, George, she asked, suddenly, over a bun
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Speaker 1: in the tea shop. Too busy, Aunt, I told her.
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Speaker 1: She bit her bun extensively and gesticulated with the remnant
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Speaker 1: to indicate that she had more to say. How are
17:56
Speaker 1: you going to make your fortune? She said, so soon
17:59
Speaker 1: as she could speak again. You haven't told us that electricity,
18:03
Speaker 1: said my uncle, taking breath after a deep draft of tea.
18:08
Speaker 1: If I make it at all, I said. For my part,
18:11
Speaker 1: I think shall be satisfied with something less than a fortune.
18:16
Speaker 1: We're going to make ours. Suddenly, she said, so, he
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Speaker 1: old says. She jerked her head at my uncle. He
18:24
Speaker 1: won't tell me when. So I can't get anything ready.
18:27
Speaker 1: But it's coming, going to ride in our carriage and
18:30
Speaker 1: have a garden, garden like a bishop's, she finished her
18:35
Speaker 1: bun and twiddled crumbs from her fingers. I shall be
18:38
Speaker 1: glad of the garden, she said. It's going to be
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Speaker 1: a real big one, with rosaries and things, fountains in it, pampas,
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Speaker 1: grass hot houses. You'll get it all right, said my uncle,
18:51
Speaker 1: who had reddened a little gray horses in the carriage George.
18:56
Speaker 1: She said, it's nice to think about when one's dull,
19:00
Speaker 1: and dinners in restaurants often and often, and theaters in
19:05
Speaker 1: the stalls, and money and money and money, you may joke,
19:11
Speaker 1: said my uncle, and hummed for a moment, just as
19:15
Speaker 1: though an old porpoise like him would ever make money,
19:17
Speaker 1: she said, turning her eyes upon its profile with a
19:20
Speaker 1: sudden lapse to affection. He'll just porpoise about. I'll do something,
19:25
Speaker 1: said my uncle. You bet zs and wrapped with a
19:30
Speaker 1: shilling on the marble table. When you do, you'll have
19:34
Speaker 1: to buy me a new pair of gloves. She said. Anyhow,
19:37
Speaker 1: that fingers passed mending. Look, you cabbage, you, and she
19:42
Speaker 1: held a split under his nose and pulled a face
19:45
Speaker 1: of comical fierceness. My uncle smiled at these sallies at
19:49
Speaker 1: the time, but afterwards, when I went back with him
19:52
Speaker 1: to the pharmacy. The low class business grew brisker in
19:55
Speaker 1: the evening, and they kept open late. He reverted to
19:58
Speaker 1: it in a low expository tone. Your aunt's a bit impatient, George.
20:03
Speaker 1: She gets at me. It's only natural a woman doesn't
20:06
Speaker 1: understand how long it takes to build up a position. No,
20:10
Speaker 1: in certain directions. Now I am quietly building up a
20:14
Speaker 1: position now here, I get this room, I have my
20:18
Speaker 1: three assistants. Z. It's a position that, judged by the
20:22
Speaker 1: criterion of immediate income, isn't perhaps so good as I deserve.
20:27
Speaker 1: But strategically, yes, it's what I want. I make my plans,
20:33
Speaker 1: I rally my attack. What plans, I said, are you
20:37
Speaker 1: making well? George? There's one thing you can rely upon.
20:41
Speaker 1: I'm doing nothing in a hurry. I turn over this
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Speaker 1: one and that, and I don't talk indiscreetly. There's no
20:49
Speaker 1: I don't think I can tell you that. And yet
20:52
Speaker 1: why not? He got up and closed the door into
20:55
Speaker 1: the shop. I've told no one, he remarked, as he
20:58
Speaker 1: sat down again. I owe you something. His face flushed slightly.
21:03
Speaker 1: He leaned forward over the little table towards me. Listen,
21:08
Speaker 1: he said, I listened tone, No bungay, said my uncle,
21:15
Speaker 1: very slowly and distinctly. I thought he was asking me
21:19
Speaker 1: to hear some remote, strange noise. I don't hear anything,
21:23
Speaker 1: I said, reluctantly to his expectant face. He smiled undefeated.
21:28
Speaker 1: Try again, he said, and repeated tone, No bungay. Oh
21:34
Speaker 1: that I said, Eh said he. But what is it? Ah,
21:40
Speaker 1: said my uncle, rejoicing and expanding, What is it? That's
21:46
Speaker 1: what you got to ask. What won't it be? He
21:49
Speaker 1: dug me violently in what he supposed to be my ribs. George,
21:53
Speaker 1: he cried, George, watch this place. There's more to follow.
21:59
Speaker 1: And that was all I could get from him. That
22:02
Speaker 1: I believe was the very first time that the words
22:05
Speaker 1: tono bungay were ever heard on earth, unless my uncle
22:10
Speaker 1: indulged in monologues in his chamber, a highly probable thing.
22:15
Speaker 1: Its utterance certainly did not seem to me at the
22:18
Speaker 1: time to mark any sort of epoch. And had I
22:20
Speaker 1: been told this word was the open sesame to whatever
22:23
Speaker 1: pride and pleasure, the grimy front of London hid from
22:26
Speaker 1: us that evening, I should have laughed aloud. Coming now
22:31
Speaker 1: to business, I said, after a pause, and with a
22:34
Speaker 1: chill sense of effort, and I opened the question of
22:36
Speaker 1: his trust. My uncle sighed and leant back in his chair.
22:42
Speaker 1: I wish I could make all this business as clear
22:44
Speaker 1: to you as it is to me, he said. However,
22:47
Speaker 1: go on, say what you have to say. Seven after
22:53
Speaker 1: I left my uncle that evening, I gave way to
22:56
Speaker 1: a feeling of profound depression. My uncle and aunt to
23:00
Speaker 1: me to be leading. I have already used the word
23:02
Speaker 1: too often, but I must use it again. Dingy lives.
23:07
Speaker 1: They seemed to be adrift in a limitless crowd of
23:09
Speaker 1: dingy people, wearing shabby clothes, living uncomfortably in shabby second
23:14
Speaker 1: hand houses, going to and fro on pavements that had
23:18
Speaker 1: always a thin veneer of greasy, slippery mud under gray skies,
23:22
Speaker 1: that showed no gleam of hope of anything for them
23:25
Speaker 1: but dinginess until they died. It seemed absolutely clear to
23:30
Speaker 1: me that my mother's little savings had been swallowed up,
23:33
Speaker 1: and that my own prospect was all too certainly to
23:36
Speaker 1: drop into and be swallowed up myself, sooner or later
23:40
Speaker 1: by this dingy London ocean, the London that was to
23:43
Speaker 1: be an adventurous escape from the slumber of Wimblehurst had
23:47
Speaker 1: vanished from my dreams. I saw my uncle pointing to
23:50
Speaker 1: the houses in Park Lane and showing a frayed shirt cuff.
23:54
Speaker 1: As he did so, I heard my aunt I am
23:57
Speaker 1: to ride in my carriage then, so he owned says.
24:02
Speaker 1: My feelings towards my uncle were extraordinarily mixed. I was
24:06
Speaker 1: intensely sorry, not only for my aunt Susan, but for him,
24:10
Speaker 1: for it seemed indisputable that as they were living, then,
24:14
Speaker 1: so they must go on. And at the same time
24:17
Speaker 1: I was angry with the garrulous vanity and illness that
24:20
Speaker 1: had clipped all my chance of independent study and imprisoned
24:24
Speaker 1: her in those gray apartments. When I got back to Wimblehurst,
24:28
Speaker 1: I allowed myself to write him a boyishly sarcastic and
24:32
Speaker 1: sincerely bitter letter. He never replied. Then, believing it to
24:37
Speaker 1: be the only way of escape for me, I set
24:39
Speaker 1: myself far more grimly and resolutely to my studies than
24:43
Speaker 1: I had ever done before. After a time I wrote
24:46
Speaker 1: to him in more moderate terms, and he answered me evasively,
24:50
Speaker 1: And then I tried to dismiss him from my mind,
24:53
Speaker 1: and went on working. Yes that first rate upon London
24:58
Speaker 1: under the moist and chilly depression of January had an
25:01
Speaker 1: immense effect upon me. It was for me an epoch
25:05
Speaker 1: making disappointment. I had thought of London as a large, free, welcoming,
25:10
Speaker 1: adventurous place, and I saw it slovenly and harsh and irresponsive.
25:15
Speaker 1: I did not realize at all what human things might
25:19
Speaker 1: be found behind those gray frontages, what weakness that whole
25:22
Speaker 1: forbidding facade might presently confess. It is the constant error
25:27
Speaker 1: of youth to overestimate the will in things. I did
25:31
Speaker 1: not see that the dirt, the discouragement, the discomfort of
25:34
Speaker 1: London could be due simply to the fact that London
25:37
Speaker 1: was a witless, old giantess of a town, too slack
25:41
Speaker 1: and stupid to keep herself clean and maintain a brave
25:44
Speaker 1: face to the world. No I suffered from the sort
25:48
Speaker 1: of illusion that burnt witches in the seventeenth century. I
25:52
Speaker 1: endured her grubby disorder with a sinister and magnificent quality
25:56
Speaker 1: of intention. And my uncle's gestures and promises filled me
26:01
Speaker 1: with doubt and a sort of fear for him. He
26:04
Speaker 1: seemed to me a lost little creature, too silly to
26:07
Speaker 1: be silent in a vast implacable condemnation. I was full
26:11
Speaker 1: of pity and a sort of tenderness for my Aunt Susan,
26:14
Speaker 1: who was doomed to follow his erratic fortunes. Mocked by
26:17
Speaker 1: his grandiloquent promises. I was to learn better, but I
26:22
Speaker 1: worked with the terror of the grim under side of
26:25
Speaker 1: London in my soul during all my last year at Wilmblehurst.
26:31
Speaker 1: End of book, first chapter, third parts four to seven.
26:36
Speaker 1: Recording by William tom Coe