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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 14 - From the Crow's Nest · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of The Sleeper Awakes. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox doc org. Read
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  Speaker 1: by Nat Johnson. The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen. From the Crow's Nest. And so, after strange
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  Speaker 1: delays and through an avenue of doubt and battle, this
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  Speaker 1: man from the nineteenth century came at last to his
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  Speaker 1: position at the head of that complex world. At first,
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  Speaker 1: when he rose from the long, deep sleep that followed
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  Speaker 1: his rescue and the surrender of the Council, he did
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  Speaker 1: not recognize his surroundings. By an effort, he gained a
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  Speaker 1: clue in his mind, and all that had happened came
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  Speaker 1: back to him, at first with a quality of insincerity,
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  Speaker 1: like a story heard, like something read out of a book.
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  Speaker 1: And even before his memories were clear, the exultation of
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  Speaker 1: his escape, the wonder of his promments were back in
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  Speaker 1: his mind. He was the owner of the world, master
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  Speaker 1: of the earth. This new great age was in the
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  Speaker 1: completest sense his He no longer hoped to discover his
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  Speaker 1: experience as a dream. He became anxious now to convince
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  Speaker 1: himself that they were real. An obsequious valet assisted him
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  Speaker 1: to dress under the direction of a dignified chief attendant,
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  Speaker 1: a little man whose face proclaimed him Japanese, albeit he
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  Speaker 1: spoke English like an Englishman. From the latter he learnt
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  Speaker 1: something of the state of affairs. Already the revolution was
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  Speaker 1: an accepted fact. Already business was being resumed throughout the city. Abroad,
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  Speaker 1: the downfall of the Council had been received, for the
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  Speaker 1: most part with delight. Nowhere was the Council popular, and
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  Speaker 1: the thousand cities of Western America, after two hundred years,
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  Speaker 1: still jealous of New York, London and the East, had
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  Speaker 1: risen almost unanimously. Two days before, at the news of
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  Speaker 1: Graham's imprisonment, Paris was fighting within itself. Of the world
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  Speaker 1: hung in suspense. While he was breaking his fast, the
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  Speaker 1: sound of a telephone bell jatted from a corner, and
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  Speaker 1: his chief attendant calls his attention to the voice of
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  Speaker 1: ostrog making polite inquiries. Graham interrupted his refreshment to reply.
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  Speaker 1: Very shortly, Lincoln arrived, and Graham at once expressed a
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  Speaker 1: strong desire to talk to people and to be shown
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  Speaker 1: more of the new life that was opening before him.
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  Speaker 1: Lincoln informed him that in three hours time, a representative
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  Speaker 1: gathering of officials and their wives would be held in
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  Speaker 1: the state apartments of the wind vane Chief. Graham's desire
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  Speaker 1: to traverse the ways of the city was, however, at
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  Speaker 1: present impossible because of the enormous excitement of the people.
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  Speaker 1: It was, however, quite possible for him to take a
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  Speaker 1: bird's eye view of the city from the crow's nest
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  Speaker 1: of the wind vane keeper. To this, Graham was conducted
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  Speaker 1: by his attendant. Lincoln, with a graceful compliment to the attendant,
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  Speaker 1: apologized for not accompanying them on account of the present
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  Speaker 1: pressure of administrative work higher even than the most gigantic
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  Speaker 1: wind wheels. Hung this crow's nest, a clear thousand feet
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  Speaker 1: above the roofs a little disc shaped speck on a
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  Speaker 1: sphere of metallic filigree cable stayed to its summit. Graham
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  Speaker 1: was drawn in a little wire hung cradle. Halfway down
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  Speaker 1: the frail seeming stem was a light gallery about which
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  Speaker 1: hung a cluster of tubes. Minute they looked from above,
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  Speaker 1: rotating slowly on the ring of its outer rail, they
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  Speaker 1: were specula on rapport with the wind vane keeper's mirrors,
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  Speaker 1: in one of which Ostrog had shown him the coming
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  Speaker 1: of his rule. His Japanese attendant ascended before him, and
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  Speaker 1: they spent nearly an hour asking and answering questions. It
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  Speaker 1: was a day full of the promise and quality of spring.
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  Speaker 1: The touch of the wind warmed, the sky was an
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  Speaker 1: intense blue, and the vast expanse of London shone dazzling
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  Speaker 1: under the morning sun. The air was clear of smoke
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  Speaker 1: and haze, sweet as the air of a mountain glen.
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  Speaker 1: Save for the irregular ovals of ruins about the House
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  Speaker 1: of Council and the black flag of the surrender that
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  Speaker 1: flew there, the mighty city seen from above showed few
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  Speaker 1: signs of the swift revolution that had, to his imagination
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  Speaker 1: in one night and one day, changed the destinies of
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  Speaker 1: the world. A multitude of people still swarmed over these
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  Speaker 1: ruins and the huge open work stagings in the distance
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  Speaker 1: from which started in times of peace. The service of
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  Speaker 1: aeroplanes to the great cities of Europe and America were
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  Speaker 1: also black. With the victors. Across a narrow way of
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  Speaker 1: planking raised on trestles that crossed the ruins, a crowd
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  Speaker 1: of workmen were busy restoring the connection between the cables
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  Speaker 1: and wires of the council House and the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the city, preparatory to the transfer thither of Ostrog's headquarters
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  Speaker 1: from the wind vane buildings. For the rest, the luminous
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  Speaker 1: expanse was undisturbed, So vast was its serenity in comparison
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  Speaker 1: with the areas of disturbance that presently Graham, looking beyond them,
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  Speaker 1: could almost forget the th thousands of men lying out
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  Speaker 1: of sight in the artificial glare within the quasi subterranean labyrinth,
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  Speaker 1: dead or dying of the overnight wounds. Forget the improvised
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  Speaker 1: wards with the hosts of surgeons, nurses and bearers feverishly busy.
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  Speaker 1: Forget indeed, all the wonder consternation and novelty under the
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  Speaker 1: electric lights down there in the hidden ways of the
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  Speaker 1: ant hill. He knew that the revolution triumphed, That black
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  Speaker 1: everywhere carried the day, black favors, black banners, black festoons,
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  Speaker 1: across the streets, and out here under the fresh sunlight
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  Speaker 1: beyond the crater of the fight, as if nothing had
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  Speaker 1: happened to the earth, The forest of wind veins that
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  Speaker 1: had grown from one or two, while the council had ruled,
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  Speaker 1: roared peacefully upon their incessant duty. Far away, spiked jaggon
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  Speaker 1: and indented by the wind veins, the Surrey Hills rose
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  Speaker 1: blue and faint to the north and nearer the sharp
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  Speaker 1: contours of high Gate and Muswell Hill were similarly jagged,
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  Speaker 1: and all over the countryside. He knew on every creston hill,
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  Speaker 1: where once the hedges had interlaced, and cottages, churches, inns,
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  Speaker 1: and farm houses had nestled among their trees, windwheels similar
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  Speaker 1: to those he saw, and bearing like them, vast advertisements,
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  Speaker 1: gaunt and distinctive symbols of the New Age, cast their
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  Speaker 1: whirling shadows and stored incessantly the energy that flowed away
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  Speaker 1: incessantly through all the arteries of the city. And underneath
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  Speaker 1: these wandered the countless flocks and herds of the British
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  Speaker 1: Food Trust his property, with their lonely guards and keepers.
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  Speaker 1: Not a familiar outline anywhere broke the cluster of gigantic
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  Speaker 1: shapes below Saint Paul's he knew survived, and many of
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  Speaker 1: the old buildings in Westminster embedded out of sight, arched
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  Speaker 1: over and covered in among the giant growths of this
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  Speaker 1: great age. The Thames too made no fall and gleane
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  Speaker 1: beam of silver to break the wilderness of the city.
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  Speaker 1: The thirsty water mains drank up every drop of its
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  Speaker 1: waters before they reached the walls. Its bed and estuary
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  Speaker 1: scoured and sunken. Was now a canal of sea water,
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  Speaker 1: and a race of grimy bargemen brought the heavy materials
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  Speaker 1: of trade from the pool. Thereby beneath the very feet
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  Speaker 1: of the workers. Faint and dim in the eastward, between
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  Speaker 1: Earth and sky hung the clustering masts of the colossal
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  Speaker 1: shipping in the pool. For all the heavy traffic for
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  Speaker 1: which there was no need of haste, came in gigantic
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  Speaker 1: sailing ships from the ends of the Earth, and the
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  Speaker 1: heavy goods for which there was urgency in mechanical ships
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  Speaker 1: of a smaller, swifter sort. And to the south, over
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  Speaker 1: the hills came vast aqueducts with sea water for the sewers,
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  Speaker 1: and in three separate directions ran pallid lines, the road
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  Speaker 1: stippled with moving gray specks. On the first occasion that offered,
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  Speaker 1: he was determined to go out and see these roads.
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  Speaker 1: They would come after the flying ship. He was presently
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  Speaker 1: to try. His attendant officer described them as a pair
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  Speaker 1: of gently curving surfaces a hundred yards wide, each one
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  Speaker 1: for the traffic going in one direction, and made of
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  Speaker 1: a substance called edamite, an artificial substance so far as
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  Speaker 1: he could gather, resembling toughened glass. Along this shot a
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  Speaker 1: strange traffic of narrow, rubber shod vehicles, great single wheels,
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  Speaker 1: two and four wheeled vehicles, sweeping along at velocities from
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  Speaker 1: one to six miles a minute. Railroads had vanished, a
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  Speaker 1: few embankments remained as rust crowned trenches here and there,
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  Speaker 1: some few formed the cores of edamite ways. Among the
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  Speaker 1: first things to strike his attention had been the great
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  Speaker 1: fleets of advertisement balloons and kites that receded in irregular
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  Speaker 1: vistas northward and southward along the lines of the aeroplane journeys.
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  Speaker 1: No great aeroplanes were to be seen. Their passages had ceased,
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  Speaker 1: and only one little seeming monoplane circled high in the
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  Speaker 1: blue distance above the Surrey Hills, an unimpressive soaring speck,
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  Speaker 1: a thing Graham had already learnt, and which he found
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  Speaker 1: very hard to imagine. Was that nearly all the towns
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  Speaker 1: in the country, and almost all the villages had disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: Here and there only he understood some gigantic hotel like
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  Speaker 1: edifice stood amid square miles of some single cultivation, and
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  Speaker 1: preserved the name of a town as a Bournemouth, Whareham
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  Speaker 1: or Swanage. Yet the officer had speedily convinced him how
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  Speaker 1: inevitable such a change had been. The old order had
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  Speaker 1: dotted the countryside with farm houses, and every two or
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  Speaker 1: three miles was the ruling landlord's estate, and the place
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  Speaker 1: of the inn and cobbler, the grocery shop, and the
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  Speaker 1: church the village. Every eight miles or so was the
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  Speaker 1: country town where lawyer, corn merchant, wood Stapler, Saddler, veterinary surgeon,
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  Speaker 1: doctor Draper, Milliner, and so forth lived every eight miles,
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  Speaker 1: simply because that eight mile marketing journey for there and
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  Speaker 1: back was as much as was comfortable for the farmer.
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  Speaker 1: But directly the railways came into play, and after them
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  Speaker 1: the light railways and all the swift new motor cars
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  Speaker 1: that had replaced wagons and horses, And so soon as
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  Speaker 1: the high roads began to be made of wood and
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  Speaker 1: rubber and edomite, and all sorts of elastic, durable substances.
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  Speaker 1: The necessity for having such frequent market towns disappeared, and
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  Speaker 1: the big towns grew. They drew the worker with the
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  Speaker 1: gravitational force of seemingly endless work, the employer with their
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  Speaker 1: suggestion of an infinite ocean of labour. As the standard
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  Speaker 1: of comfort rose, as the complexity of the mechanism of
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  Speaker 1: living increased, life in the country had become more and
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  Speaker 1: more costly or narrow and impossible. The disappearance of vicar
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  Speaker 1: and squire, the extinction of the general practitioner by the
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  Speaker 1: city specialist, had robbed the village of its last touch
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  Speaker 1: of culture. After telephone, kinematograph and phonograph had replaced newspaper, book, schoolmaster,
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  Speaker 1: and letter. To live outside the range of the electric
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  Speaker 1: cables was to live in ice, elated savage. In the country,
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  Speaker 1: there were neither means of being clothed nor fed according
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  Speaker 1: to the refined conceptions of the time, no efficient doctors
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  Speaker 1: for an emergency, no company, and no pursuits. Moreover, mechanical
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  Speaker 1: appliances in agriculture made one engineer the equivalent of thirty laborers,
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  Speaker 1: so inverting the condition of the city clerk in the
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  Speaker 1: days when London was scarce inhabitable because of the coally
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  Speaker 1: foulness of its heirs. The laborers now came to the
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  Speaker 1: city and its life and delights at night, to leave
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  Speaker 1: it again in the morning. The city had swallowed up humanity.
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  Speaker 1: Man had entered upon a new stage in his development.
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  Speaker 1: First had come the nomad, the hunter. Then had followed
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  Speaker 1: the agriculturists of the agricultural state, whose towns and cities
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  Speaker 1: and ports were but the headquarters and markets of the countryside.
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  Speaker 1: And now logical consequence of an epoch of invention was
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  Speaker 1: this huge new aggregation of men. Such things as these
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  Speaker 1: simple statements of fact, though they were to contemporary men,
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  Speaker 1: strained Graham's imagination to picture, And when he glanced over
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  Speaker 1: beyond there at the strange things that existed on the continent,
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  Speaker 1: it failed him altogether. He had a vision of city
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  Speaker 1: beyond city, cities on great plains, cities beside great rivers,
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  Speaker 1: vast cities along the sea margin, cities girdled by snowy mountains,
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  Speaker 1: over a great part of the earth. The English tongue
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  Speaker 1: was spoken, taken together with its Spanish, American, and Hindu,
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  Speaker 1: and Negro in Pigeon dialects. It was the every day
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  Speaker 1: language of two thirds of humanity on the continent, save
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  Speaker 1: as remote and curious survivals. Three other languages alone held
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  Speaker 1: sway German, which reached to Antioch and Genoa and Jostles,
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  Speaker 1: Spanish English at Kadith, a gallicized Russian which met the
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  Speaker 1: Indian English in Persia and Kurdistan, and the Pidgin English
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  Speaker 1: in Pekin and French. Still clear and brilliant, the language
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  Speaker 1: of Lucidity, which shared the Mediterranean with the Indian English
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  Speaker 1: and German, and reached through a Negro dialect to the Congo.
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  Speaker 1: And everywhere now through the city set Earth, save in
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  Speaker 1: the administered black belt territories of the tropics, the same
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  Speaker 1: cosmopolitan social organization prevailed. And everywhere, from Pole to equator,
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  Speaker 1: his property and his responsibilities extended. The whole world was civilized.
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  Speaker 1: The whole world dwelt in cities. The whole world was
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  Speaker 1: his property. Out of the dim southwest, glittering and strange, voluptuous,
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  Speaker 1: and in some ways terrible, shone those pleasure cities of
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  Speaker 1: which the camatograph, phonograph and the old man in the
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  Speaker 1: street had spoken. Strange places reminiscent of the legendary Sibarus
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  Speaker 1: cities of art and beauty, mercenary art and mercenary beauty,
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  Speaker 1: sterile wonderful cities of motion and music. Whither repaired all
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  Speaker 1: who profited by the fierce inglorio economic struggle that went
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  Speaker 1: on in the glaring labyrinth below. Fierce he knew it was.
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  Speaker 1: How fierce he could judge from the fact that these
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  Speaker 1: latter day people referred back to the England of the
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth century as the figure of an idyllic, easy going life.
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  Speaker 1: He turned his eyes to the scene immediately before him, again,
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  Speaker 1: trying to conceive the big factories of that intricate maze.
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  Speaker 1: Thus concludes Chapter fourteenth of The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: read by Nat Johnson, Rockport, Massachusetts,