Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Tono-Bungay Book 2 Chapter 1 - Parts 4-6

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Tono-Bungay Book 2 Chapter 1 - Parts 4-6 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book, second chapter, first parts four to six of Tono Bungay.
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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, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William tom Coe. Tono
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Speaker 1: Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book, second chapter, first parts
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Speaker 1: four to six. Four Ewart as the embodiment of talk,
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Speaker 1: was certainly a leading factory in my conspicuous failure to
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Speaker 1: go on studying social theory in its first crude form
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Speaker 1: of democratic socialism, gripped my intelligence more and more powerfully.
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Speaker 1: I argued in the laboratory with the man who shared
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Speaker 1: my bench until we quarreled and did not speak. And
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Speaker 1: also I fell in love. The ferment of sex had
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Speaker 1: been creeping into my being like a slowly advancing tide
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Speaker 1: through all my Wimblehurst day. The stimulus of London was
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Speaker 1: like the rising of a wind out of the sea
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Speaker 1: that brings the waves in fast and high. Ewart had
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Speaker 1: a share in that. More and more acutely and unmistakably
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Speaker 1: did my perception of beauty, form and sound. My desire
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Speaker 1: for adventure, my desire for intercourse, converge on this central
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Speaker 1: and commanding business of the individual life. I had to
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Speaker 1: get me a mate. I began to fall in love
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Speaker 1: faintly with girls. I passed in the street with women
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Speaker 1: who sat before me, in trains with girl fellow students,
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Speaker 1: with ladies, in passing carriages, with loiterers at the corners,
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Speaker 1: with neat handed waitresses, in shops and tea rooms, with
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Speaker 1: pictures even of girls and women. On my rare visits
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Speaker 1: to the theater, I always became exalted and found the
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Speaker 1: actresses and even the spectators about me mysterious, attractive, creatures
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Speaker 1: of deep interest and desire. I had a stronger and
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Speaker 1: stronger sense than among these glancing, passing multitudes. There was
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Speaker 1: somewhere one who was for me. And in spite of
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Speaker 1: every antagonistic force in the world, there was something in
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Speaker 1: my very marrow that insisted, stop, look at this one.
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Speaker 1: Think of her? Won't she do? This? Signifies this before
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Speaker 1: all things, signifies stop, why are you hurrying by? This
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Speaker 1: may be the predestined person before all others. It is
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Speaker 1: odd that I can't remember when first I saw Marian,
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Speaker 1: who became my wife, whom I was to make wretched,
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Speaker 1: who was to make me wretched, Who was to pluck
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Speaker 1: that fine, generalized possibility of love out of my early
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Speaker 1: manhood and make it a personal conflict. I became aware
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Speaker 1: of her as one of a number of interesting, attractive
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Speaker 1: figures that moved about in my world, that glanced back
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Speaker 1: at my eyes, that flitted by with a kind of
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Speaker 1: averted watchfulness. I would meet her coming through the Art Museum,
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Speaker 1: which was my shortcut to the Brompton Road, or see
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Speaker 1: her sitting reading, as I thought, in one of the
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Speaker 1: bays of the education library. But really, as I found
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Speaker 1: out afterwards, she never read. She used to come there
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Speaker 1: to eat a bun in quiet. She was a very
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Speaker 1: gracefully moving figure of a girl, then, very plainly dressed
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Speaker 1: with dark brown hair I remember, in a knot low
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Speaker 1: on her neck behind that confessed the pretty roundness of
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Speaker 1: her head, and harmonized with the admirable lines of ears
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Speaker 1: and cheek, the grave serenity of mouth and brow. She
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Speaker 1: stood out among the other girls very distinctly because they
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Speaker 1: dressed more than she did. Struck emphatic notes of color,
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Speaker 1: startled one by novelties and hats and bows and things.
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Speaker 1: I've always hated the rustle, the this concerning color boundaries
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Speaker 1: the smart, unnatural angles of women's clothes. Her plain black
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Speaker 1: dress gave her a starkness. I do remember, though, how
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Speaker 1: one afternoon I discovered the peculiar appear form for me.
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Speaker 1: I had been restless with my work and had finally
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Speaker 1: slipped out of the laboratory and come over to the
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Speaker 1: Art Museum to lounge among the pictures. I came upon
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Speaker 1: her in an odd corner of the Sheepshanks gallery, intently
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Speaker 1: copying something from a picture that hung high. I had
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Speaker 1: just been in the gallery of casts from the antique.
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Speaker 1: My mind was all alive with my newly awakened sense
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Speaker 1: of line. And there she stood, with face upturned, her
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Speaker 1: body drooping forward from the hips, just a little, memorably
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Speaker 1: graceful feminine. After that, I know I sought to see her,
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Speaker 1: felt a distinctive emotion at her presence, began to imagine
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Speaker 1: things about her. I no longer thought of generalized womanhood,
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Speaker 1: or of this casual person, or that I thought of her.
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Speaker 1: An accident brought us together. I found myself one Monday
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Speaker 1: morning in an omnibus, staggering westward from Victoria. I was
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Speaker 1: returning from a sunday i'd spent at Wimblehurst in respond
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Speaker 1: as to a unique freak of hospitality on the part
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Speaker 1: of mister Mantel. She was the sole other inside passenger,
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Speaker 1: and when the time came to pay her fare, she
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Speaker 1: became an extremely scared, disconcerted and fumbling young woman. She
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Speaker 1: had left her purse at home. Luckily I had some money.
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Speaker 1: She looked at me with startled, troubled brown eyes. She
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Speaker 1: permitted my proffered payment to the conductor with a certain
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Speaker 1: ungraciousness that seemed a part of her shyness. And then
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Speaker 1: as she rose to go, she thanked me with an
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Speaker 1: obvious affectation of ease. Thank you so much, she said,
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Speaker 1: in a pleasant, soft voice, and then less gracefully, awfully
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Speaker 1: kind of you. You know, I fancy I made polite noises,
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Speaker 1: but just then I wasn't disposed to be critical. I
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Speaker 1: was full of the sense of her presence. Her arm
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Speaker 1: was stretched out over me as she moved past me.
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Speaker 1: The gracious slenderness of her body was near me. The
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Speaker 1: words we used didn't seem very greatly matter. I had
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Speaker 1: vague ideas of getting out with her, and I didn't.
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Speaker 1: That encounter, I have no doubt, exercised me enormously. I
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Speaker 1: lay awake at night rehearsing it and wondering about the
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Speaker 1: next phase of our relationship that took the form of
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Speaker 1: the return of my tuppence. I was in the science
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Speaker 1: library digging something out of the Encyclopedia Britannica when she
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Speaker 1: appeared beside me and placed on the open page an
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Speaker 1: evidently premeditated thin envelope, bulgingly confessing the coins within. It
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Speaker 1: was so very kind of you, she said the other day.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what I should have done, mister. I
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Speaker 1: supplied my name. I knew, I said, you were a
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Speaker 1: student here, not exactly a student, I well, anyhow, I
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Speaker 1: knew you were here frequently, and I'm a student myself
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Speaker 1: at the consolidated technical schools. I plunged into autobiography and questionings,
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Speaker 1: and so entangled her in a conversation that got a
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Speaker 1: quality of intimacy through the fact that, out of deference
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Speaker 1: to our fellow readers, we were obliged to speak in undertones,
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Speaker 1: and I have no doubt that in substance it was
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Speaker 1: singularly banal. Indeed, I have an impression that all our
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Speaker 1: early conversations were incredibly banal. We met several times, in
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Speaker 1: a manner half accidental, half furtive, and wholly awkward. Mentally,
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Speaker 1: I didn't take hold of her. I never did take
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Speaker 1: hold of her. Mentally. Her talk, I now know all
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Speaker 1: too clearly, was shallow, pretentious, evasive, only even to this
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Speaker 1: day I don't remember it as in any way vulgar.
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Speaker 1: She was, I could see quite clearly, anxious to overstate
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Speaker 1: or conceal her real social status, a little desirous to
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Speaker 1: be taken for a student in the art school, and
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Speaker 1: a little ashamed that she wasn't. She came to the
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Speaker 1: museum to copy things, and this I gathered has something
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Speaker 1: to do with some way of partially earning her living
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Speaker 1: that I wasn't to inquire into. I told her things
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Speaker 1: about myself, vain things that I felt might appeal to her,
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Speaker 1: but that I learned long afterwards made her think me conceited.
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Speaker 1: We talked of books, but there she was very much
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Speaker 1: on her guard and secretive, and rather more freely of pictures.
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Speaker 1: She liked pictures. I think from the outset I appreciated
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Speaker 1: and did not for a moment resent that hers was
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Speaker 1: a commonplace mind, that she was the unconscious custodian of
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Speaker 1: something that had gripped my most intimate instinct that she
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Speaker 1: embodied the hope of a possibility. Was a careless proprietor
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Speaker 1: of a physical quality that had turned my head like
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Speaker 1: strong wine. I felt I had to stick to our acquaintance,
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Speaker 1: flat as it was presently. We should get through these
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Speaker 1: irrelevant exterior things and come to the reality of love beneath.
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Speaker 1: I saw her in dreams, released as it were, from herself, beautiful, worshipful, glowing,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes when we were together, we would come on
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Speaker 1: silences through sheer lack of matter, and then my eyes
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Speaker 1: would feast on her, and the silence seemed like the
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Speaker 1: drawing back of a curtain. Her superficial self odd, I
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Speaker 1: confess odd, particularly the enormous hold of certain things about
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Speaker 1: her upon me, A certain slight, rounded duskiness of skin,
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Speaker 1: a certain perfection of modeling in her lips, her brow,
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Speaker 1: a certain fine flow about the shoulders. She wasn't, indeed
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Speaker 1: beautiful to many people. These things are beyond explaining. She
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Speaker 1: had manifest defects of form and feature, and they didn't
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Speaker 1: matter at all. Her complexion was bad, but I don't
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Speaker 1: think it would have mattered if it had been positively unwholesome.
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Speaker 1: I had extraordinarily limited, extraordinarily painful desires. I longed intolerably
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Speaker 1: to kiss her lips. Five. The affair was immensely serious
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Speaker 1: and commanding to me. I don't remember that in these
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Speaker 1: earlier phases I had any thought of turning back at all.
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Speaker 1: It was clear to me that she regarded me with
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Speaker 1: an eye entirely more critical than I had for her.
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Speaker 1: That she didn't like my scholarly untidiness, my want of
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Speaker 1: even the most commonplace style. Why do you wear collars
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Speaker 1: like that? She said, and sent me in pursuit of
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Speaker 1: gentlemanly neckware. I remember when she invited me a little
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Speaker 1: abruptly one day to come to tea at her home
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Speaker 1: on the following Sunday and meet her father and mother
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Speaker 1: and aunt. And I immediately doubted whether my hitherto unsuspected
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Speaker 1: best clothes would create the impression she desired me to
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Speaker 1: make on her belongings. I put off the encounter until
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Speaker 1: the Sunday after to get myself in order. I had
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Speaker 1: a morning coat made, and I bought a silk hat,
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Speaker 1: and had my reward in the first glance of admiration
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Speaker 1: she ever gave me. I wonder how many of my
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Speaker 1: sex are as preposterous? I was, you see, abandoning all
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Speaker 1: my beliefs, my conventions unasked. I was forgetting myself immensely,
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Speaker 1: and there was a conscious shame in it all. Never
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Speaker 1: a word did I breathe to Ewart, to any living
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Speaker 1: soul of what was going on. Her father and mother
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Speaker 1: and aunt struck me as the dismalest of people, and
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Speaker 1: her home in Wallam Green was chiefly notable for its
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Speaker 1: black and amber tapestry, carpets and curtains and tablecloths, and
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Speaker 1: the age and irrelevance of its books, mostly books with
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Speaker 1: faded guilt on the covers. The windows were fortified against
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Speaker 1: the intrusive eye by cheap lace curtains and an art
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Speaker 1: pot upon an unstable octagonal table. Several framed art school
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Speaker 1: drawings of Marian's bearing official South Kensington marks of approval
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Speaker 1: adorned the room, and there was a black and gilt
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Speaker 1: piano with a hymn book on the top of it.
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Speaker 1: There were draped mirrors over all the mantles, and above
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Speaker 1: the sideboard in the dining room in which we sat
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Speaker 1: at tea was a portrait of her father villainously truthful.
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Speaker 1: After the manner of such works, I couldn't see a
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Speaker 1: trace of the beauty I found in her and either parent.
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Speaker 1: Yet she somehow contrived to be like them. Both these
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Speaker 1: people pretended in a way that reminded me of the
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Speaker 1: three great women in my mother's room. But they had
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Speaker 1: not nearly so much social knowledge, and did not do
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Speaker 1: it nearly so well. Also, I remarked, they did it
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Speaker 1: with an eye on Marian. They had wanted to thank me,
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Speaker 1: they said, for the kindness to their daughter in the
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Speaker 1: matter of the bus fare, and so accounted for anything
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Speaker 1: unusual in their invitation. They posed as simple gentlefolk, a
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Speaker 1: little hostile to the rush and gantting about of London,
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Speaker 1: preferring a secluded and unpretentious quiet. When Marian got out
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Speaker 1: the white tablecloth of the sideboard drawer for tea, a
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Speaker 1: card bearing the word apartments fell to the floor. I
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Speaker 1: picked it up and gave it to her, before I
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Speaker 1: realized from her quickened color that I should not have
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Speaker 1: seen it, that probably had been removed from the window
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Speaker 1: in honor of my coming. Her father spoke once in
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Speaker 1: a large, remote way of his claims of business engagements,
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Speaker 1: and it was only long afterwards I realized that he
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Speaker 1: was a supernumerary clerk in the Wallumn Green gas works,
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Speaker 1: and otherwise a useful man at home. He was a large, loose,
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Speaker 1: fetish man, with unintelligent brown eyes magnified by spectacles. He
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Speaker 1: wore an ill fitting frock coat and a paper collar.
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Speaker 1: And he showed me as his great treasure and interest,
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Speaker 1: a large Bible, which he had grandeurized with photographs of pictures. Also,
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Speaker 1: he cultivated the little garden yard behind the house, and
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Speaker 1: he had a small greenhouse with tomatoes. I wish I
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Speaker 1: add eat, He said, one can do such a lot
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Speaker 1: with eat. But I suppose you can't have everything you
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Speaker 1: want in this world. But both he and Marian's mother
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Speaker 1: treated her with a deference that struck me as the
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Speaker 1: most natural thing in the world. Her own manner changed,
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Speaker 1: became more authoritative and watchful, Her shyness disappeared. She had
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Speaker 1: taken a line of her own. I gathered, draped the mirror,
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Speaker 1: got the second hand piano, and broken her parents in.
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Speaker 1: Her mother must once have been a pretty woman. She
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Speaker 1: had regular features and Marian's hair without its luster, but
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Speaker 1: she was thin and careworn. The aunt, Miss Ramboat was
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Speaker 1: a large, abnormally shy person, very like her brother, and
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Speaker 1: I don't recall anything she said on this occasion. To
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Speaker 1: begin with, there was a good deal of tension. Marian
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Speaker 1: was frightfully nervous, and every one was under the necessity
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Speaker 1: of behaving in a mysteriously unreal fashion until I plunged,
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Speaker 1: became talkative and made a certain ease and interest. I
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Speaker 1: told them of the schools of my lodgings of Wimblehurst
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Speaker 1: and my apprenticeship days. There's a lot of the science
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Speaker 1: about nowadays, mister Ramboldt reflected, but I sometimes wonder a
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Speaker 1: bit what good it is. I was young enough to
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Speaker 1: be led into what he called a bit of a discussion,
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Speaker 1: which Marian truncated before our voices became unduly raised. I
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Speaker 1: daresay she said, there's much to be said on both sides.
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Speaker 1: I remember Marian's mother asked me what church I attended,
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Speaker 1: and that I replied evasively. After tea there was music
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Speaker 1: and we sang hymns. I doubted if I had a
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Speaker 1: voice when this was proposed, but that was held to
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Speaker 1: be a trivial objection. And I found sitting close beside
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Speaker 1: the sweep of hair from Marian's brow had many compensations.
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Speaker 1: I discovered her mother sitting in the horsehair arm chair
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Speaker 1: and regarding us sentimentally. I went for a walk with
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Speaker 1: Marian towards Putney Bridge, and then there was more singing
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Speaker 1: than a supper of cold bacon and pie, after which
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Speaker 1: mister Ramboat and I smoked. During that walk. I remember
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Speaker 1: she told me the import of her sketchings and copyings
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Speaker 1: in the museum. A cousin of a friend of hers,
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Speaker 1: whom she spoke of as Smithy, had developed an original
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Speaker 1: business in a sort of tea gown garment which she
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Speaker 1: called a Persian robe, a plain sort of wrap with
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Speaker 1: a gaily embroidered yoke. And Marian went there and worked
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Speaker 1: in the busy times. In the times that weren't busy,
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Speaker 1: she designed novelties in yokes by an assiduous use of
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Speaker 1: eyes and note book in the museum, and went home
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Speaker 1: and traced out the captured forms on the foundation material.
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Speaker 1: I don't get much, said Marian, but it's interesting, and
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Speaker 1: in the busy times we work all day. Of course,
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Speaker 1: the work girls are dreadfully common, but we don't say
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Speaker 1: much to them. And Smithy talks enough for ten I
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Speaker 1: quite understood the work girls were dreadfully common. I don't
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Speaker 1: remember that the wallum green minage, and the quality of
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Speaker 1: these people, nor the light they threw on Marion detacted
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Speaker 1: in the slightest degree at that time from the intent
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Speaker 1: resolve that held me to make her mind. I didn't
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Speaker 1: like them, but I took them as part of the affair. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: on the whole. I think they threw her up by
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Speaker 1: an effect of contrast. She was so obviously controlling them,
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Speaker 1: so consciously superior to them. More and more of my
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Speaker 1: time did I give to this passion that possessed me.
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Speaker 1: I began to think chiefly of ways of pleasing Marian,
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Speaker 1: of acts of devotion, of treats, of sumptuous presence for her,
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Speaker 1: of appeals she would understand. If at times she was
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Speaker 1: manifestly unintelligent and her ignorance became indisputable, I told myself
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Speaker 1: her simple instincts were worth all the education and intelligence
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Speaker 1: in the world. And to this day I think I
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Speaker 1: wasn't really wrong about her. There was something extraordinarily fine
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Speaker 1: about her, something simple and high, that flickered in and
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Speaker 1: out of her ignorance and commonness and limitations, like the
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Speaker 1: tongue from the mouth of a One night I was
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Speaker 1: privileged to meet her and bring her home from an
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Speaker 1: entertainment at the Birkbeck Institute. We came back on the
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Speaker 1: underground railway and we traveled first class, that being the
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Speaker 1: highest class available. We were alone in the carriage, and
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Speaker 1: for the first time I ventured to put my arm
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Speaker 1: about her. You mustn't, she said, feebly. I love you,
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Speaker 1: I whispered suddenly, with my heart beating wildly, to her
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Speaker 1: to me, drew all her beauty to me and kissed
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Speaker 1: her cool and unresisting lips. Love me, she said, struggling
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Speaker 1: away from me. Don't. And then as a train went
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Speaker 1: into a station, you must tell no one. I don't know.
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Speaker 1: You shouldn't have done that. Then two other people got
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Speaker 1: in with us and terminated my wooing for a time.
18:49
Speaker 1: When we found ourselves alone together walking towards Battersea, she
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Speaker 1: had decided to be offended. I parted from her, unforgiven
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Speaker 1: and terribly distressed. When we met again, she told me
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Speaker 1: I must never say that again. I had dreamt that
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Speaker 1: to kiss her lips was ultimate satisfaction, but it was
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Speaker 1: indeed only the beginning of desires. I told her my
19:12
Speaker 1: one ambition was to marry her, but she said, you're
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Speaker 1: not in a position. What's the good of talking like that?
19:20
Speaker 1: I stared at her, I mean to I said, you can't.
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Speaker 1: She answered, it will be years. But I love you,
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Speaker 1: I insisted. I stood not a yard from the sweet
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Speaker 1: lips I had kissed. I stood within arm's length of
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Speaker 1: the inanimate beauty. I desired to quicken, and I saw
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Speaker 1: opening between us, a gulf of years toil, waiting disappointments,
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Speaker 1: and an immense uncertainty. I love you, I said, don't
19:48
Speaker 1: you love me? She looked me in the face with grave,
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Speaker 1: irresponsive eyes. I don't know, she said, I like you,
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Speaker 1: of course, what has to be sensible? I can remember
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Speaker 1: now my sense of frustration by her unresilient reply. I
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Speaker 1: should have perceived then that for her my ardor had
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Speaker 1: no quickening fire. But how was I to know? I
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Speaker 1: had let myself come to want her. My imagination endowed
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Speaker 1: her with infinite possibilities. I wanted her, and wanted her
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Speaker 1: stupidly and instinctively. But I said, love one has to
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Speaker 1: be sensible. She replied, I like going about with you.
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Speaker 1: Can't we keep as we are? Six? Well? You begin
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Speaker 1: to understand my break down. Now I have been copious
20:39
Speaker 1: enough with these apologia. My work got more and more spiritless,
20:43
Speaker 1: my behavior degenerated, my punctuality declined. I was more and
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Speaker 1: more outclassed in the steady grind by my fellow students.
20:53
Speaker 1: Such supplies of moral energy as I still had at command,
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Speaker 1: shaped now in the direction of serving Marian rather than science,
21:02
Speaker 1: I fell away dreadfully. More and more I shirked and skulked,
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Speaker 1: the humped men from the north, the pale men with
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Speaker 1: thin clenched minds, the intent hard breathing students I found
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Speaker 1: against me fell at last from keen rivalry to moral contempt.
21:17
Speaker 1: Even a girl got above me upon one of the lists. Then, Indeed,
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Speaker 1: I made it a point of honor to show, by
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Speaker 1: my public disregard of every rule that I really did
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Speaker 1: not even pretend to try. So. One day I found
21:31
Speaker 1: myself sitting in a mood of considerable astonishment in Kensington Gardens,
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Speaker 1: reacting on a recent heated interview with the school registrar
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Speaker 1: in which I had displayed more spirit than since. I
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Speaker 1: was astonished, chiefly at my stupendous falling away from all
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Speaker 1: the militant ideals of unflinching study I had brought up
21:50
Speaker 1: from Wimblehurst. I had displayed myself, as the registrar put it,
21:54
Speaker 1: and unmitigated rotter. My failure to get marks in the
21:58
Speaker 1: written examination had only been equalled by the insufficiency of
22:01
Speaker 1: my practical work. I ask you, The registrar had said,
22:06
Speaker 1: what will become of you when your scholarship runs out?
22:10
Speaker 1: It certainly was an interesting question. What was going to
22:14
Speaker 1: become of me? It was clear there would be nothing
22:17
Speaker 1: for me in the school. As I had once dared
22:19
Speaker 1: to hope. There seemed indeed scarcely anything in the world
22:23
Speaker 1: except an ill paid assistantship in some provincial organized science
22:27
Speaker 1: school or grammar school. I knew that for that sort
22:31
Speaker 1: of work, without a degree or any qualification, one earned
22:35
Speaker 1: hardly a bare living and had little leisure to struggle
22:37
Speaker 1: up to anything better. If only I had even as
22:40
Speaker 1: little as fifty pounds, I might hold out in London
22:44
Speaker 1: and take my Bachelor of Science degree and quadrupled my chances.
22:49
Speaker 1: My bitterness against my uncle returned at the thought, after all,
22:53
Speaker 1: he had some of my money still, or ought to have.
22:57
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't I act within my rights? Threaten to take.
22:59
Speaker 1: For I meditated for a space on the idea, and
23:03
Speaker 1: then returned to the Science library and wrote him a
23:06
Speaker 1: very considerable and occasionally pungent letter. That letter to my
23:11
Speaker 1: uncle was the nator of my failure, its remarkable consequences,
23:16
Speaker 1: which ended my student days altogether. I would tell in
23:19
Speaker 1: the next chapter, I say my failure. Yet there are
23:23
Speaker 1: times when I can even doubt whether that period was
23:26
Speaker 1: a failure at all. When I become defensively critical of
23:30
Speaker 1: those exacting courses, I did not follow the encyclopedic process
23:34
Speaker 1: of scientific exhaustion from which I was distracted. My mind
23:39
Speaker 1: was not inactive, even if it fed on forbidden food.
23:43
Speaker 1: I did not learn what my professors and demonstrators had
23:45
Speaker 1: resolved I should learn. But I learned many things. My
23:49
Speaker 1: mind learned to swing wide and to swing by itself.
23:53
Speaker 1: After all, those other fellows who took high places in
23:56
Speaker 1: the college examinations and were the professor's model boys, haven't
24:00
Speaker 1: done so amazingly. Some are professors themselves, some technical experts.
24:05
Speaker 1: Not one can show things done such as I, following
24:09
Speaker 1: my own interest, have achieved. For I have built boats
24:13
Speaker 1: that smack across the water like whiplashes. No one ever
24:16
Speaker 1: dreamt of such boats until I built them. And I
24:19
Speaker 1: have surprised three secrets that are more than technical discoveries
24:23
Speaker 1: in the unexpected hiding places of nature. I have come
24:26
Speaker 1: nearer flying than any man has done. Could I have
24:30
Speaker 1: done as much if I had had a turn for
24:32
Speaker 1: obeying those rather mediocre professors at the college who propose
24:36
Speaker 1: to train my mind? If I had been trained in
24:39
Speaker 1: research that ridiculous contradiction in terms, should I have done
24:43
Speaker 1: more than produce additions to the existing store of little
24:46
Speaker 1: papers with blunted conclusions, of which there are already too many?
24:51
Speaker 1: I see no sense in mock modesty upon this matter.
24:54
Speaker 1: Even by the standards of worldly success, I am, by
24:58
Speaker 1: the side of my fellow students, no failure. I had
25:01
Speaker 1: my f r s by the time I was thirty seven,
25:05
Speaker 1: and if I am not very wealthy, poverty is as
25:07
Speaker 1: far from me as a Spanish inquisition. Suppose I had
25:11
Speaker 1: stamped down on the head of my wandering curiosity, locked
25:15
Speaker 1: my imagination in a box just when it wanted to
25:17
Speaker 1: grow out to things worked by so and so's excellent
25:21
Speaker 1: method and so and so's indications. Where should I be now?
25:26
Speaker 1: I may be all wrong? In this it may be
25:29
Speaker 1: I should be a far more efficient man than I
25:32
Speaker 1: am if I had cut off all those divergent expenditures
25:35
Speaker 1: of energy, plugged up my curiosity about society with more
25:39
Speaker 1: currently acceptable rubbish or other abandoned Ewart evaded Marian instead
25:44
Speaker 1: of pursuing her concentrated But I don't believe it. However,
25:50
Speaker 1: I certainly believed it completely, and was filled with remorse
25:54
Speaker 1: on that afternoon when I sat dejectedly in Kensington Gardens
25:58
Speaker 1: and reviewed in the Life of the Registrart's pertinent questions
26:02
Speaker 1: by first two years in London. End of book, second chapter,
26:08
Speaker 1: first parts four to six. Recording by William tom Coe