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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 17 - Three Days · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen of The Sleeper Awakes recording by Mark Nelson.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen. Three days Lincoln awaited Graham in an apartment
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  Speaker 1: beneath the flying stages. He seemed curious to learn all
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  Speaker 1: that had happened, pleased to hear of the extraordinary delight
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  Speaker 1: and interest which Graham took in flying. Graham was in
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  Speaker 1: a mood of enthusiasm. I must learn to fly, he cried.
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  Speaker 1: I must master that. I pity all poor souls who
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  Speaker 1: have died without this opportunity, the sweet swift air. It
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  Speaker 1: is the most wonderful experience in the world. You will
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  Speaker 1: find our new times full of wonderful experiences, said Lincoln.
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  Speaker 1: I do not know what you will care to do. Now.
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  Speaker 1: We have music that may seem novel for the present,
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  Speaker 1: said Graham. Flying holds me. Let me learn more of that.
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  Speaker 1: Your aeronaut was saying. There is some trades union objection
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  Speaker 1: to one's learning. There is, I believe, said Lincoln. But
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  Speaker 1: for you, if you would like to occupy yourself with that,
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  Speaker 1: we can make you a swore, narrow naut tomorrow. Graham
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  Speaker 1: expressed his wishes vividly, and talked of his sensations for
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  Speaker 1: a while. And as for affairs, he asked, abruptly, how
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  Speaker 1: are things going on? Lincoln waved affairs aside. Ostrog will
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  Speaker 1: tell you that tomorrow, he said. Everything is settling down.
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  Speaker 1: The revolution accomplishes itself all over the world. Friction is
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  Speaker 1: inevitable here and there, of course, but your rule is assured.
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  Speaker 1: You may rest secure with things in Ostrog's hands. Would
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  Speaker 1: it be possible for me to be made a sworn aeronaut,
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  Speaker 1: as you call it, forthwith before I sleep, said Graham, pacing.
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  Speaker 1: Then I could be at it the very first thing
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  Speaker 1: tomorrow again. It would be possible, said Lincoln thoughtfully. Quite possible.
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  Speaker 1: Indeed it shall be done, he laughed. I came prepared
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  Speaker 1: to suggest amusements, but you have found one for yourself.
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  Speaker 1: I will telephone to the aeronautical offices from here, and
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  Speaker 1: we will return to your apartments in the wind vane control.
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  Speaker 1: By the time you have dined, the aeronauts will be
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  Speaker 1: able to come. You don't think that after you have dined,
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  Speaker 1: you might prefer he paused, Yes, said Graham. We had
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  Speaker 1: prepared a show of dancers. They have been brought from
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  Speaker 1: the Capri theater. I hate ballets, said Graham shortly. Always
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  Speaker 1: did that other That's not what I want to see.
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  Speaker 1: We had dancers in the old days. For the matter
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  Speaker 1: of that, they had them in ancient Egypt. But flying true,
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  Speaker 1: said Lincoln. Though our dancers they can afford to wait,
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  Speaker 1: said Graham. They can afford to wait. I know I'm
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  Speaker 1: not a Latin. There's questions. I want to ask some
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  Speaker 1: expert about your machinery. I'm keen. I want no distractions.
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  Speaker 1: You have the world to choose from, said Lincoln. Whatever
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  Speaker 1: you want is yours. Asano appeared, and under the escort
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  Speaker 1: of a strong guard, they returned through the city streets
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  Speaker 1: to Graham's apartments. Far larger crowds had assembled to witness
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  Speaker 1: his return than his departure had gathered, and the shouts
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  Speaker 1: and cheering of these masses of people sometimes drowned Lincoln's
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  Speaker 1: answers to the endless questions Dam's aerial journey had suggested.
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  Speaker 1: At first, Graham had acknowledged the cheering and cries of
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  Speaker 1: the crowd by bows and gestures, but Lincoln warned him
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  Speaker 1: that such a recognition would be considered incorrect behavior. Graham,
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  Speaker 1: already a little wearied by rhythmic civilities, ignored his subjects
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  Speaker 1: for the remainder of his public progress. Directly they arrived
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  Speaker 1: at his apartments, Asano departed in search of kinematographic renderings
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  Speaker 1: of machinery in motion, and Lincoln dispatched Graham's commands for
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  Speaker 1: models of machines and small machines to illustrate the various
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  Speaker 1: mechanical advances of the last two centuries. The little group
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  Speaker 1: of appliances for telegraphic communication attracted the master so strongly
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  Speaker 1: that his delightfully prepared dinner, served by a number of
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  Speaker 1: charmingly dexterous girls, waited for a space. The habit of
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  Speaker 1: smoking had almost ceased from the face of the earth,
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  Speaker 1: But when he expressed a wish for that indulgence and
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  Speaker 1: quiries were made, and some excellent cigars were discovered in
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  Speaker 1: Florida and sent to him by pneumatic dispatch while the
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  Speaker 1: dinner was still in progress. Afterwards came the aeronauts, and
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  Speaker 1: a feast of ingenious wonders in the hands of a
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  Speaker 1: latter day engineer for the time. At any rate, the
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  Speaker 1: neat dexterity of counting and numbering machines, building machines, spinning engines,
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  Speaker 1: patent doorways, explosive motors, grain and water elevators, slaughter house machines,
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  Speaker 1: and harvesting appliances was more fascinating to Graham than any bayadere.
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  Speaker 1: We were savages, was his refrain. We were savages, we
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  Speaker 1: were in the Stone Age, compared with this and what
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  Speaker 1: else have you? There came also practical psychologists, with some
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  Speaker 1: very interesting developments in the art of hypnotism. The names
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  Speaker 1: of Milney, Bramwell, Fechner, le Beau, William, James, Myers, and
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  Speaker 1: Gurney he found bore a value now that would have
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  Speaker 1: astonished their contemporaries. Several practical applications of psychology were now
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  Speaker 1: in general use. It had largely superseded drugs, antiseptics and anesthetics.
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  Speaker 1: In medicine was employed by almost all who had any
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  Speaker 1: need of mental concentration. A real enlargement of human faculty
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  Speaker 1: seemed to have been effected in this direction. The feats
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  Speaker 1: of calculating boys the wonders, as Graham had been, wont
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  Speaker 1: to regard them of mesmerizers were now within the range
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  Speaker 1: of anyone who could afford the services of a skilled hypnotist.
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  Speaker 1: Long ago, the old examination methods in education had been
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  Speaker 1: destroyed by these expedients. Instead of years of study, candidates
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  Speaker 1: had substituted a few weeks of trances, and during the
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  Speaker 1: trances expert coaches had simply to repeat all the points
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  Speaker 1: necessary for adequate answering, adding a suggestion of the post
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  Speaker 1: hypnotic recollection of these points. In process mathematics particularly, this
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  Speaker 1: aid had been of singular service, and it was now
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  Speaker 1: invariably invoked by such players of chess and games of
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  Speaker 1: manual dexterity as were still to be found. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: all operations conducted under finite rules of a quasi mechanical sort,
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  Speaker 1: that is, were now systematically relieved from the wanderings of
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  Speaker 1: imagination and emotion, and brought to an unexampled pitch of accuracy.
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  Speaker 1: Little children of the laboring classes, so soon as they
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  Speaker 1: were of sufficient age to be hypnotized, were thus converted
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  Speaker 1: into beautifully punctual and trustworthy machine minders, and released forthwith
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  Speaker 1: from the long long thoughts of youth. Nautical pupils who
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  Speaker 1: gave way to giddiness could be relieved from their imaginary terrors.
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  Speaker 1: In every street were hypnotists ready to print permanent memories
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  Speaker 1: upon the mind. If anyone desired to remember a name,
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  Speaker 1: a series of numbers, a song, or a speech, it
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  Speaker 1: could be done by this method, and conversely, memories could
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  Speaker 1: be effaced, habits removed, and desires eradicated. A sort of
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  Speaker 1: psychic surgery was in fact in general use in dignities.
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  Speaker 1: Humbling experiences were thus forgotten. Widows would obliterate their previous husbands,
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  Speaker 1: angry lovers released themselves from their slavery. To graft desires, however,
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  Speaker 1: was still impossible, and the facts of thought transference were
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  Speaker 1: yet unsystematized. The psychologists illustrated their expositions with some astounding
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  Speaker 1: experiments in mnemonics, made through the agency of a troop
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  Speaker 1: of pale faced children in Blue. Graham, like most of
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  Speaker 1: the people of his former time, distrusted the hypnotist, or
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  Speaker 1: he might then and there have eased his mind of
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  Speaker 1: many painful preoccupations. But in spite of Lincoln's assurances, he
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  Speaker 1: held to the old theory that to be hypnotized was
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  Speaker 1: in some way the surrender of his personality, the abdication
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  Speaker 1: of his will at the banquet of wonderful experiences that
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  Speaker 1: was beginning. He wanted very keenly to remain absolutely himself.
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  Speaker 1: The next day, and another day, and yet another day
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  Speaker 1: passed in such interests as these. Each day Graham spent
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  Speaker 1: many hours in the glorious entertainment of flying. On the
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  Speaker 1: third he soared across Middle France and within sight of
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  Speaker 1: the snow clad Alps. These vigorous exercises gave him RESTful sleep.
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  Speaker 1: He recovered almost wholly from the spiritless anemia of his
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  Speaker 1: first awakening, And whenever he was not in the air
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  Speaker 1: and awake, Lincoln was assiduous in the cause of his amusement.
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  Speaker 1: All that was novel and curious in contemporary invention was
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  Speaker 1: brought to him, until at last his appetite for novelty
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  Speaker 1: was well nigh glutted. One might fill a dozen in
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  Speaker 1: consecutive volumes with the strange things they exhibited. Each afternoon
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  Speaker 1: he held his court for an hour or so. He
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  Speaker 1: found his interest in his contemporaries becoming personal and intimate.
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  Speaker 1: At first, he had been alert, chiefly for unfamiliarity and
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  Speaker 1: peculiarity any foppishness in their dress, any discordance with his
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  Speaker 1: preconceptions of nobility in their status and manners had jarred
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  Speaker 1: upon him. And it was remarkable to him how soon
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  Speaker 1: that strangeness and the fame hostility that arose from it disappeared,
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  Speaker 1: how soon he came to appreciate the true perspective of
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  Speaker 1: his position, and see the old Victorian days remote and quaint.
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  Speaker 1: He found himself particularly amused by the red haired daughter
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  Speaker 1: of the manager of the European piggeries. On the second day,
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  Speaker 1: after dinner, he made the acquaintance of a latter day
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  Speaker 1: dancing girl and found her an astonishing artist, and after
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  Speaker 1: that more hypnotic wonders. On the third day, Lincoln was
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  Speaker 1: moved to suggest that the Master should repair to a
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  Speaker 1: pleasure city. But this Graham declined, nor would he accept
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  Speaker 1: the services of hypnotists. In his aeronautical experiments, the link
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  Speaker 1: of locality held him to London. He found a delight
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  Speaker 1: in topographical identifications that he would have missed abroad. Here
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  Speaker 1: or one hundred feet below here, he could say, I
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  Speaker 1: used to eat my midday cutlets during my London university days.
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  Speaker 1: Under here was Waterloo, and the tiresome hunt for confusing trains.
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  Speaker 1: Often have I stood waiting down there, bag in hand,
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  Speaker 1: and stared up into the sky above the forest of signals,
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  Speaker 1: little thinking I should walk some day one hundred yards
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  Speaker 1: in the air, and now in that very sky that
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  Speaker 1: was once a gray smoke canopy, I circle in a monoplane.
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  Speaker 1: During those three days, Graham was so occupied with these
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  Speaker 1: distractions that the vast political movements in progress outside his
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  Speaker 1: quarters had but a small share of his attention. Those
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  Speaker 1: about him told him little. Daily came ostrog the boss,
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  Speaker 1: his grand Vizier, his mayor of the palace, to report
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  Speaker 1: in vague terms, the steady establishment of his rule. A
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  Speaker 1: little trouble soon to be settled in this city, a
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  Speaker 1: slight disturbance, in that the song of the social revolt
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  Speaker 1: came to him no more. He never learned that it
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  Speaker 1: had been forbidden in the municipal limits, And all the
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  Speaker 1: great emotions of the crow's nest slumbered in his mind.
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  Speaker 1: But on the second and third of the three days,
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  Speaker 1: he found himself in spite of his interest in the
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  Speaker 1: daughter of the pig manager. Or it may be by
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  Speaker 1: reason of the thoughts her conversation suggested, remembering the girl
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  Speaker 1: Helen Wotton, who had spoken to him so oddly at
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  Speaker 1: the wind vane Keeper's gathering. The impression she had made
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  Speaker 1: was a deep one, albeit the incessant surprise of novel
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  Speaker 1: circumstances had kept him from brooding upon it for a space.
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  Speaker 1: But now her memory was coming to its own. He
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  Speaker 1: wondered what she had meant by those broken, half forgotten sentences.
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  Speaker 1: The picture of her eyes and the earnest passion of
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  Speaker 1: her faith became more vivid as his mechanical interests faded.
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  Speaker 1: Her slender beauty came compellingly between him and certain immediate
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  Speaker 1: temptations of ignoble passion. But he did not see her
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  Speaker 1: again until three full days were past. End of Chapter seventeen.