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04 - The Time Machine - H G Wells · Science Fiction Books - Daily

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Speaker 1: Chapter four. In another moment, we were standing face to face,
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Speaker 1: I and this fragile thing out of futurity. He came
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Speaker 1: straight up to me and laughed into my eyes. The
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Speaker 1: absence from his bearing of any sign of fear struck
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Speaker 1: me at once. Then he turned to the two others
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Speaker 1: who were following him, and spoke to them in a
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Speaker 1: strange and very sweet and liquid tongue. There were others coming,
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Speaker 1: and presently a little group of perhaps eight or ten
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Speaker 1: of these exquisite creatures were about me. One of them
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Speaker 1: addressed me. It came into my head oddly enough that
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Speaker 1: my voice was too harsh and deep for them, So
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Speaker 1: I shook my head, and, pointing to my ears, shook
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Speaker 1: it again. He came a step forward, hesitated, and then
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Speaker 1: touched my hand. Then I felt other soft little tentacles
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Speaker 1: upon my back and shoulders. They wanted to make sure
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Speaker 1: I was real. There was nothing in this at all alarming. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: there was something in these pretty little people that inspired confidence,
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Speaker 1: a graceful gentleness, a certain childlike ease. And besides, they
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Speaker 1: looked so frail that I could fancy myself flinging the
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Speaker 1: whole dozen of them about like nine pins. But I
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Speaker 1: made a sudden motion to warn them when I saw
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Speaker 1: their little pig hands feeling the time machine happily. Then,
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Speaker 1: when it was not too late, I thought of a
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Speaker 1: danger I had hitherto forgotten, and reaching over the bars
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Speaker 1: of the machine, I unscrewed the little levers that would
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Speaker 1: set it in motion, and put these in my pocket.
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Speaker 1: Then I turned again to see what I could do
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Speaker 1: in the way of communication, And then, looking more nearly
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Speaker 1: into their features, I saw some further peculiarities in their
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Speaker 1: Dresden China type of prettiness. Their hair, which was uniformly curly,
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Speaker 1: came to a sharp end at the neck and cheek.
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Speaker 1: There was not the faintest suggestion of it on the face,
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Speaker 1: and their ears were singularly minute. Their mouths were small,
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Speaker 1: with bright red, rather thin lips, and the little chins
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Speaker 1: ran to a point. The eyes were large and mild.
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Speaker 1: And this may seem egotism on my part, I fancied
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Speaker 1: even that there was a certain lack of the interest
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Speaker 1: I might have expected in them, as they made no
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Speaker 1: effort to communicate with me, but simply stood round me,
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Speaker 1: smiling and speaking in soft, cooing notes to each other.
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Speaker 1: I began the conversation. I pointed to the time machine
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Speaker 1: and to myself, then, hesitating for a moment, how to
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Speaker 1: express time? I pointed to the sun at once. A
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Speaker 1: quaintly pretty little figure in checkered purple and white followed
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Speaker 1: my gesture and then astonished me by imitating the sound
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Speaker 1: of thunder. For a moment I staggered, though the import
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Speaker 1: of his gesture was plain enough. The question had come
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Speaker 1: into my mind abruptly. Were these creatures fools? You may
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Speaker 1: hardly stand how it took me. You see, I had
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Speaker 1: always anticipated that the people of the year eight hundred
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Speaker 1: and two thousand odd would be incredibly in front of
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Speaker 1: us in knowledge, art everything. Then one of them suddenly
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Speaker 1: asked me a question that showed him to be on
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Speaker 1: the intellectual level of one of our five year old children.
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Speaker 1: Asked me, in fact, if I had come from the
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Speaker 1: sun in a thunder storm, it let loose the judgment
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Speaker 1: I had suspended upon their clothes, their frail, light limbs
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Speaker 1: and fragile features. A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind.
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Speaker 1: For a moment, I felt that I had built the
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Speaker 1: time machine in vain. I nodded, pointed to the sun,
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Speaker 1: and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap
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Speaker 1: as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so
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Speaker 1: and bowed. Then came one, laughing towards me, carrying a
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Speaker 1: chain of beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put
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Speaker 1: it about my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause,
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Speaker 1: and presently they were all running to and fro for flowers,
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Speaker 1: and laughingly flinging them upon me, until I was almost
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Speaker 1: smothered with blossom. You who have never seen the light
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Speaker 1: can scarcely imagine what delicate and wonderful flowers countless years
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Speaker 1: of culture had created. Then someone suggested that their plaything
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Speaker 1: should be exhibited in the nearest building, And so I
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Speaker 1: was led past the sphinx of white marble, which it
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Speaker 1: seemed to watch me all the while with a smile
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Speaker 1: at my astonishment, towards a vast gray edifice of fretted stone.
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Speaker 1: As I went with them, the memory of my confident
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Speaker 1: anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came with
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Speaker 1: irresistible merriment to my mind. The building had a huge
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Speaker 1: entry and was altogether of colossal dimensions. I was naturally,
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Speaker 1: most occupied with the growing crowd of little people, and
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Speaker 1: with the big open portals that yawned before me, shadowy
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Speaker 1: and mysterious. My general impression of the world I saw
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Speaker 1: over their heads was a tangled waste of beautiful bushes
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Speaker 1: and flowers, a long, neglected and yet weedless garden. I
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Speaker 1: saw a number of tall spikes of strange white flowers,
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Speaker 1: measuring a foot perhaps across the spread of the waxen petals.
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Speaker 1: They grew scattered as if wild, among the variegated shrubs,
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Speaker 1: but as I say, I did not examine them closely.
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Speaker 1: At this time, the time machine was left deserted on
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Speaker 1: the turf among the rhododendrons. The arch of the doorway
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Speaker 1: was richly carved, but naturally I did not observe the
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Speaker 1: carving very narrowly, though I fancied. I saw suggestions of
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Speaker 1: old Phoenician decorations as I passed through, and it struck
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Speaker 1: me that they were very badly broken and weather worn.
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Speaker 1: Several more brightly clad people met me in the doorway,
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Speaker 1: and so we entered. I dressed in nineteenth century garments,
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Speaker 1: looking grotesque enough, garlanded with flowers, and surrounded by an
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Speaker 1: eddying mass of bright, soft colored robes and shining white limbs.
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Speaker 1: In a melodious whirl of laughter and laughing speech. The
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Speaker 1: big doorway opened into a proportionately great hall, hung with brown.
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Speaker 1: The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partially glazed
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Speaker 1: with colored glass and partially unglazed, admitted a tempered light.
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Speaker 1: The floor was made up of huge blocks of some
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Speaker 1: very hard white metal, not plates nor slabs, blocks, and
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Speaker 1: it was so much worn, as I judged by the
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Speaker 1: going to and fro of past generations, as to be
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Speaker 1: deeply channeled. Along the more frequented ways. Transverse to the
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Speaker 1: length were innumerable tables made of slabs of polished stone,
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Speaker 1: raised perhaps a foot from the floor, And upon these
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Speaker 1: were heaps of fruits saw I recognized as a kind
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Speaker 1: of hypertrophied raspberry and orange, but for the most part
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Speaker 1: they were strange. Between the tables was scattered a great
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Speaker 1: number of cushions. Upon these my conductors seated themselves, signing
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Speaker 1: for me to do likewise. With a pretty absence of ceremony,
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Speaker 1: they began to eat the fruit with their hands, flinging
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Speaker 1: peel and stalks, and so forth into the round openings
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Speaker 1: in the sides of the tables. I was not loath
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Speaker 1: to follow their example, for I felt thirsty and hungry
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Speaker 1: as I did so, I surveyed the hall at my leisure,
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Speaker 1: and perhaps the thing that struck me most was its
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Speaker 1: dilapidated look. The stained glass windows, which displayed only a
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Speaker 1: geometrical pattern, were broken in many places, and the curtains
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Speaker 1: that hung across the lower end were thick with dust.
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Speaker 1: And it caught my eye that the corner of the
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Speaker 1: marble table near me was fractured. Nevertheless, the general effect
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Speaker 1: was extremely rich and picturesque. There were perhaps a couple
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Speaker 1: of hundred people dining in the hall, and most of them,
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Speaker 1: seated as near to me as they could come, were
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Speaker 1: watching me with interest, their little eyes shining over the
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Speaker 1: fruit they were eating. All were clad in the same
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Speaker 1: soft and yet strong, silky material. Fruit, by the bye,
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Speaker 1: was all their diet. These people of the remote future
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Speaker 1: were strict vegetarians, and while I was with them, in
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Speaker 1: spite of some carnal cravings, I had to be frugivous also. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: I found afterwards that horses, cattle, sheep dogs had followed
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Speaker 1: the Ichthyosaurus into extinction. But the fruits were very delightful.
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Speaker 1: One in particular, had seemed to be in season all
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Speaker 1: the time I was there. A flowery thing in a
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Speaker 1: three sided husk was especially good, and I made it
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Speaker 1: my staple. At first I was puzzled by all these
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Speaker 1: strange fruits and by the stream flowers I saw. But
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Speaker 1: later I began to perceive their import However, I am
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Speaker 1: telling you of my fruit dinner in the distant future. Now,
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Speaker 1: so soon as my appetite was a little checked, I
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Speaker 1: determined to make a resolute attempt to learn the speech
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Speaker 1: of these new men of mine. Clearly that was the
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Speaker 1: next thing to do. The fruits seemed a convenient thing
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Speaker 1: to begin upon, and holding one of these up, I
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Speaker 1: began a series of interrogative sounds and gestures. I had
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Speaker 1: some considerable difficulty in conveying my meaning. At first my
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Speaker 1: efforts met with a stare of surprise or inextinguishable laughter.
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Speaker 1: But presently a fair haired little creature seemed to grasp
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Speaker 1: my intention and repeated a name. They had to chatter
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Speaker 1: and explain the business at great length to each other,
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Speaker 1: and my first attempts to make the exquisite little sounds
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Speaker 1: of their language caused an immense amount of amusement. However,
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Speaker 1: I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children and press assisted
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Speaker 1: and presently I had a score of noun substantives, at
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Speaker 1: least at my command, and then I got to demonstrate
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Speaker 1: pronouns and even the verb to eat. But it was
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Speaker 1: slow work, and the little people soon tired and wanted
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Speaker 1: to get away from my interrogations. So I determined, rather
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Speaker 1: of necessity, to let them give their lessons in little
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Speaker 1: doses when they felt inclined, And very little doses I
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Speaker 1: found they were before long, for I never met people
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Speaker 1: more indolent or more easily fatigued. A queer thing I
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Speaker 1: soon discovered about my little hosts, and that was their
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Speaker 1: lack of interest. They would come to me with eager
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Speaker 1: cries of astonishment, like children, but like children they would
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Speaker 1: soon stop examining me and wander away after some other toy.
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Speaker 1: The dinner and my conversation beginnings ended, I noted for
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Speaker 1: the first time that almost all those who had surrounded
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Speaker 1: me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how
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Speaker 1: speedily I came to disregard these little people. I went
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Speaker 1: out through the portal into the sunlit world again as
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Speaker 1: soon as my hunger was satisfied. I was continually meeting
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Speaker 1: more of these men of the future, who would follow
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Speaker 1: me at a little distance, chatter and laugh about me,
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Speaker 1: and having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave
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Speaker 1: me again to my own devices. The calm of evening
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Speaker 1: was upon the world as I emerged from the Great Hall,
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Speaker 1: and the scene was lit by the warm glow of
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Speaker 1: the setting sun. At first things were very confusing. Everything
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Speaker 1: was so entirely different from the world I had known,
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Speaker 1: even the flowers. The big building I had left was
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Speaker 1: situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but
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Speaker 1: the Thames had shifted perhaps a mile from its present position.
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Speaker 1: I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest
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Speaker 1: perhaps a mile and a half away, from which I
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Speaker 1: could get a wider view of this our planet. In
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Speaker 1: the year eight one hundred and two thousand, seven hundred
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Speaker 1: and one A d for that I should explain was
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Speaker 1: the date the little dials of my machine recorded. As
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Speaker 1: I walked, I was watched for every impression that could
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Speaker 1: possibly help to explain the condition of ruinous splendor in
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Speaker 1: which I found the world. For ruinous it was a
12:23
Speaker 1: little way up the hill, for instance, was a great
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Speaker 1: heap of granite bound together by masses of aluminium, a
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Speaker 1: vast labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps. Amidst which
12:34
Speaker 1: were thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda like plants, nettles,
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Speaker 1: possibly but wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves and
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Speaker 1: incapable of stinging. It was evidently that derelict remains of
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Speaker 1: some vast structure. To what end built I could not determine.
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Speaker 1: It was here that I was destined, at a later
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Speaker 1: date to have a very strange experience, the first intimateation
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Speaker 1: of a still stranger discovery. But of that I will
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Speaker 1: speak in its proper place. Looking round with a sudden
13:08
Speaker 1: thought from a terrace in which I rested for a while,
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Speaker 1: I realized that there were no small houses to be seen.
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Speaker 1: Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished.
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Speaker 1: Here and there among the greenery were palace like buildings,
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Speaker 1: but the house and the cottage, which formed such characteristic
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Speaker 1: features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. Communism, said
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Speaker 1: I to myself, And on the heels of that came
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Speaker 1: another thought. I looked at the half dozen little figures
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Speaker 1: that were following me. Then, in a flash, I perceived
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Speaker 1: that all had the same form of costume, the same soft,
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Speaker 1: hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It
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Speaker 1: may seem strange, perhaps that I had not noticed this before,
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Speaker 1: but everything was so strange now I saw the fact
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Speaker 1: plainly enough, in costume and in all the differences of
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Speaker 1: texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from
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Speaker 1: each other. These people of the future were alike, and
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Speaker 1: the children seemed to my eyes to be but the
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Speaker 1: miniatures of their parents. I judged then that the children
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Speaker 1: of that time were extremely precocious physically at least, and
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Speaker 1: I found afterwards abundant verification of my opinion. Seeing the
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Speaker 1: ease and security in which these people were living. I
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Speaker 1: felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was, after all,
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Speaker 1: what one would expect for the strength of a man
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Speaker 1: and the softness of a woman. The institution of the
14:44
Speaker 1: family and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities
14:49
Speaker 1: of an age of physical force. Where population is balanced
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Speaker 1: and abundant. Much child bearing becomes an evil rather than
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Speaker 1: a blessing, to the state where violence comes but rarely,
15:01
Speaker 1: and offspring are secure there is less necessity. Indeed, there
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Speaker 1: is no necessity for an efficient family, and the specialization
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Speaker 1: of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears.
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Speaker 1: We see some beginnings of this even in our own time,
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Speaker 1: and in this future age it was complete. This, I
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Speaker 1: must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later
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Speaker 1: I was to appreciate how far it fell short of
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Speaker 1: the reality. While I was musing upon these things, my
15:34
Speaker 1: attention was attracted by a pretty little structure, like a
15:37
Speaker 1: well under a cupula. I thought, in a transitory way,
15:41
Speaker 1: of the oddness of well still existing, and then resumed
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Speaker 1: the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings
15:49
Speaker 1: towards the top of the hill, and as my walking
15:51
Speaker 1: powers were evidently miraculous, I was presently left alone for
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Speaker 1: the first time. With a strange sense of freedom and adventure,
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Speaker 1: I pushed on up to the crest. There I found
16:04
Speaker 1: a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognize,
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Speaker 1: corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and
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Speaker 1: half smothered in soft moss. The armrests cast and filed
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Speaker 1: into the resemblance of griffin's heads. I sat down on it,
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Speaker 1: and I surveyed the broad view of our old world
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Speaker 1: under the sunset of that long day. It was as
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Speaker 1: sweet and fair a view as I have ever seen.
16:31
Speaker 1: The sun had already gone below the horizon, and the
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Speaker 1: west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of
16:37
Speaker 1: purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames,
16:42
Speaker 1: in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel.
16:46
Speaker 1: I have already spoken of the great palaces dotted about
16:50
Speaker 1: among the variegated greenery, some in ruins and some still occupied.
16:56
Speaker 1: Here and there rose a white or silvery figure in
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Speaker 1: the waiste guarden of the earth. Here and there came
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Speaker 1: the sharp vertical line of some cupula or obelisk. There
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Speaker 1: were no hedges, no signs of proprietary rights, no evidences
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Speaker 1: of agriculture. The whole earth had become a garden. So watching,
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Speaker 1: I began to put my interpretation upon the things I
17:19
Speaker 1: had seen, And as it shaped itself to me that
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Speaker 1: evening my interpretation was something. In this way. Afterwards I
17:27
Speaker 1: found I had got only a half truth, or only
17:30
Speaker 1: a glimpse of one facet of the truth. It seemed
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Speaker 1: to me that I had happened upon humanity, upon the
17:38
Speaker 1: wane the ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset
17:42
Speaker 1: of mankind. For the first time, I began to realize
17:47
Speaker 1: an odd consequence of the social effort in which we
17:50
Speaker 1: are at present engaged, and yet come to think it
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Speaker 1: is a logical consequence. Enough strength is the outcome of need.
17:59
Speaker 1: Security sets of premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating
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Speaker 1: the conditions of life, the true civilizing process that makes
18:08
Speaker 1: life more and more secure, had gone steadily on to
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Speaker 1: a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over nature
18:16
Speaker 1: had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had
18:20
Speaker 1: become projects, deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And
18:24
Speaker 1: the harvest was what I saw. After all, the sanitation
18:30
Speaker 1: and the agriculture of today are still in the rudimentary stage.
18:34
Speaker 1: The science of our time has attacked but a little
18:37
Speaker 1: department of the field of human disease. But even so
18:41
Speaker 1: it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture
18:46
Speaker 1: and horticulture destroy a weed just here and there, and
18:50
Speaker 1: cultivate perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving
18:54
Speaker 1: the greater number to fight out a balance as they can.
18:58
Speaker 1: We improve our favorite plants and animals, and how few
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Speaker 1: they are. Gradually by selective breeding. Now a new and
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Speaker 1: better peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and
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Speaker 1: larger flower, Now a more convenient breed of cattle. We
19:15
Speaker 1: improve them gradually because our ideals are vague and tentative,
19:20
Speaker 1: and our knowledge is very limited, because nature, too is
19:24
Speaker 1: shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all
19:29
Speaker 1: this will be better organized, and still better, that is
19:33
Speaker 1: the drift of the current. In spite of the eddies.
19:36
Speaker 1: The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and cooperating. Things
19:41
Speaker 1: will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of nature.
19:46
Speaker 1: In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the
19:50
Speaker 1: balance of animal and vegetable to suit our human needs.
19:55
Speaker 1: This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done
19:58
Speaker 1: well done. Indeed, for all time, in the space of
20:01
Speaker 1: time across which my machine had leaped, the air was
20:05
Speaker 1: free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi. Everywhere
20:09
Speaker 1: were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers. Brilliant butterflies flew
20:14
Speaker 1: hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine was attained.
20:19
Speaker 1: Diseases had been stamped out, I saw no evidence of
20:23
Speaker 1: any contagious diseases during all my stay, and I shall
20:27
Speaker 1: have to tell you later that even the processes of
20:30
Speaker 1: putrification and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes.
20:36
Speaker 1: Social triumphs too had been affected. I saw mankind housed
20:40
Speaker 1: in splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had
20:45
Speaker 1: found them engaged in no toil. There were no signs
20:49
Speaker 1: of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle. The shop, the
20:54
Speaker 1: advertisement traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the body of
20:59
Speaker 1: our world was gone. It was natural, on that golden
21:03
Speaker 1: evening that I should jump at the idea of a
21:05
Speaker 1: social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met,
21:10
Speaker 1: I guessed, and population had ceased to increase. But with
21:15
Speaker 1: this change and condition comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What,
21:21
Speaker 1: unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the
21:24
Speaker 1: cause of human intelligence and vigor, hardship and freedom. Conditions
21:30
Speaker 1: under which the active, strong and subtle survive and the
21:34
Speaker 1: weaker go to the wall. Conditions that put a premium
21:38
Speaker 1: upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self restraint,
21:43
Speaker 1: patience and decision, and the institution of the family and
21:47
Speaker 1: the emotions that arise therein the fierce jealousy, the tenderness
21:51
Speaker 1: for offspring, parental self devotion, all found their justification and
21:56
Speaker 1: support in the imminent dangers of the young. Now where
22:01
Speaker 1: are these imminent dangers? There is a sentiment arising, and
22:06
Speaker 1: it will grow against connubial jealousy, against fierce maternity, against
22:12
Speaker 1: passion of all sorts unnecessary things now and things that
22:17
Speaker 1: make us uncomfortable, savage survivals discords in a refined and
22:22
Speaker 1: pleasant life. I thought of the physical slightness of the people,
22:27
Speaker 1: their lack of intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and
22:31
Speaker 1: it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of nature.
22:36
Speaker 1: For after the battle comes quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic,
22:42
Speaker 1: and intelligent, and had used all its abundant vitality to
22:46
Speaker 1: alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came
22:50
Speaker 1: the reaction of the altered conditions. Under the new conditions
22:54
Speaker 1: of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy that with
22:59
Speaker 1: us is strength, would become weakness. Even in our own time,
23:04
Speaker 1: certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, are a
23:09
Speaker 1: constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle,
23:14
Speaker 1: for instance, are no great help, may even be hindrances
23:18
Speaker 1: to a civilized man, and in a state of physical
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Speaker 1: balance and security, power intellectual as well as physical, would
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Speaker 1: be out of place. For countless years, I judge, there
23:30
Speaker 1: had been no danger of war or solitary violence, no
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Speaker 1: danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to require strength
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Speaker 1: of constitution, no need of toil for such a life.
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Speaker 1: What we should call the weak are as well equipped
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Speaker 1: as the strong are, indeed no longer weak. Better equipped
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Speaker 1: indeed they are, for the strong would be fretted by
23:54
Speaker 1: an energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt,
23:57
Speaker 1: the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the
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Speaker 1: outcome of the last surgings of the now purposeless energy
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Speaker 1: of mankind, before it settled down into perfect harmony with
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Speaker 1: the conditions under which it lived, the flourish of that
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Speaker 1: triumph which began the last great peace. This has ever
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Speaker 1: been the fate of energy and security. It takes to
24:19
Speaker 1: art and to eroticism, and then come languor and decay.
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Speaker 1: Even this artistic impetus would at last die away, had
24:29
Speaker 1: almost died in the time I saw, to adorn themselves
24:32
Speaker 1: with flowers, to dance to sing in the sunlight. So
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Speaker 1: much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more
24:40
Speaker 1: even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity.
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Speaker 1: We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity.
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Speaker 1: And it seemed to me that here was that hateful
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Speaker 1: grindstone broken at last. As I stood there in the
24:58
Speaker 1: gathering dark, I thought that in this simple explanation I
25:02
Speaker 1: had mastered the problem of the world, mastered the whole
25:05
Speaker 1: secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had
25:10
Speaker 1: devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well,
25:14
Speaker 1: and their numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That
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Speaker 1: would account for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation,
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Speaker 1: and plausible enough, as most wrong theories are. End of
25:30
Speaker 1: Chapter four