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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 1 - Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of the First Men in the Moon. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville,
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  Speaker 1: South Carolina. The First Man in the Moon by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Mister Bedford meets mister Cavore at Lympney. As
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  Speaker 1: I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of
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  Speaker 1: vine leaves under the blue sky of southern Italy, it
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  Speaker 1: comes to me with a certain quality of astonishment that
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  Speaker 1: my participation in these amazing adventures of mister Cavore was,
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  Speaker 1: after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might
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  Speaker 1: have been any one. I fell into these things at
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  Speaker 1: a time when I thought myself removed from the slightest
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  Speaker 1: possibility of disturbing experiences. I had gone to Lymney because
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  Speaker 1: I had imagined it the most uneventful place in the world. Here,
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  Speaker 1: at any rate, said I, I shall find peace and
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  Speaker 1: a chance to work. And this book is the sequel.
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  Speaker 1: So utterly at variance is destiny, with all the little
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  Speaker 1: plans of men. I may perhaps mention here that very
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  Speaker 1: recently I had come an ugly cropper in certain business enterprises.
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  Speaker 1: Sitting now surrounded by all the circumstances of wealth, there
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  Speaker 1: is a luxury at admitting my extremity. I can admit
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  Speaker 1: even that, to a certain extent, my disasters were conceivably
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  Speaker 1: of my own making. It may be there are directions
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  Speaker 1: in which I have some capacity, but the conduct of
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  Speaker 1: business operations is not among these. But in those days
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  Speaker 1: I was young, and my youth, among other objectionable forms,
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  Speaker 1: took that of a pride in my capacity for affairs.
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  Speaker 1: I am young still in years, but the things that
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  Speaker 1: have happened to me have rubbed something of the youth
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  Speaker 1: from my mind. Whether they have brought any wisdom to
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  Speaker 1: light below it is a more doubtful matter. It is
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  Speaker 1: scarcely necessary to go into the details of the speculations
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  Speaker 1: that led at me at Limbney in Kent. Nowadays, even
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  Speaker 1: about business transactions there is a strong spice of adventure.
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  Speaker 1: I took risks in these things. There is invariably a
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  Speaker 1: certain amount of give and take, and it fell to
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  Speaker 1: me finally to do the giving reluctantly enough, even when
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  Speaker 1: I had got out of everything, one cantankerous creditor saw
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  Speaker 1: fit to be malignant. Perhaps you have met that flaming
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  Speaker 1: sense of outraged virtue, or perhaps you have only felt it.
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  Speaker 1: He ran me hard. It seemed to me at last
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  Speaker 1: that there was nothing for it but to write a
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  Speaker 1: play unless I wanted to drudge for my living as
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  Speaker 1: a clerk. I have a certain imagination and luxurious tastes,
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  Speaker 1: and I meant to make a vigorous fight for it
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  Speaker 1: before that fate overtook me. In addition to my belief
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  Speaker 1: in my powers as a business man, I had always,
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  Speaker 1: in those days, had an idea that I was equal
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  Speaker 1: to writing a very good play. It is not, I believe,
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  Speaker 1: a very uncommon persuasion. I knew there is nothing a
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  Speaker 1: man can do outside legitimate business transactions that has such
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  Speaker 1: opulent possibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I
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  Speaker 1: had indeed got into the habit of regarding this unwritten
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  Speaker 1: drama as a convenient little reserve put by for a
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  Speaker 1: rainy day. That rainy day had come, and I set
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  Speaker 1: to work. I soon discovered that writing a play was
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  Speaker 1: a longer business than I had supposed. At first, I
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  Speaker 1: had reckoned ten days for it, and it was to
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  Speaker 1: have a piereteire. While it was in hand that I
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  Speaker 1: came to Lempny. I reckon myself lucky in getting that
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  Speaker 1: little bungalow. I got it on a three years agreement.
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  Speaker 1: I put in a few sticks of furniture, and while
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  Speaker 1: the play was in hand, I did my own cooking.
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  Speaker 1: My cooking would have shocked missus Bond, and yet you
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  Speaker 1: know it had flavor. I had a coffee pot, a
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  Speaker 1: soft pan for eggs and one for potatoes, and a
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  Speaker 1: frying pan for sausages and bacon. Such was the simple
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  Speaker 1: apparatus of my comfort. One cannot always be magnificent, but
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  Speaker 1: simplicity is always a possible alternative for the rest. I
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  Speaker 1: laid in an eighteen gallon casque of beer on credit,
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  Speaker 1: and a trustful baker came each day. It was not,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps in the style of Ciberus, but I have had
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  Speaker 1: worse times. I was a little sorry for the baker,
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  Speaker 1: who was a very decent man, indeed, but even for him,
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  Speaker 1: I hoped, certainly, if anyone wants solitude, the place is limning.
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  Speaker 1: It is in the clay part Kent. And my bungalows
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  Speaker 1: stood on the edge of an old sea cliff and
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  Speaker 1: stared across the flats of Romney Marsh at the sea
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  Speaker 1: in very wet weather. The place is almost inaccessible, and
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  Speaker 1: I have heard that at times the postman used to
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  Speaker 1: traverse the more succulent parts of his route with boards
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  Speaker 1: upon his feet. I never saw him doing so, but
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  Speaker 1: I can quite imagine it. Outside the doors of the
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  Speaker 1: few cottages and houses that make up the present village,
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  Speaker 1: big birch bessoms are stuck to wipe off the worst
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  Speaker 1: of the clay, which will give some idea of the
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  Speaker 1: texture of the district. I doubt if the place would
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  Speaker 1: be there at all if it were not a fading
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  Speaker 1: memory of things gone forever. It was the big port
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  Speaker 1: of England in Roman times. Portis Lemanis, and now the
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  Speaker 1: sea is four miles away. All down the steep hill
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  Speaker 1: are boulders and masses of Roman brickwork, and from at
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  Speaker 1: old Watling Street, still paved in places, starts like an
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  Speaker 1: arrow to the north. I used to stand on the
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  Speaker 1: hill and think of it, all the galleys and legions,
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  Speaker 1: the captives and officials, the women and traders, the speculators
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  Speaker 1: like myself, all the swarm and tumult that came clanking
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  Speaker 1: in and out of the harbor, and now just a
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  Speaker 1: few lumps of rubble on a grassy slope and a
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  Speaker 1: sheep or two. And I and where the port had
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  Speaker 1: been were the levels of the marsh, sweeping round in
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  Speaker 1: a broad curved to distant dungeness, and dotted here and
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  Speaker 1: there with tree clumps and the church towers of old
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  Speaker 1: medieval towns that are following Lemanis now towards extinction. That
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  Speaker 1: outlook on the marsh was indeed one of the finest
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  Speaker 1: views I have ever seen. I supposed Dungeness was fifteen
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  Speaker 1: miles away. It lay like a raft on the sea.
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  Speaker 1: And farther westward were the hills by hastings under the
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  Speaker 1: setting sun. Sometimes they hung close and clear, sometimes they
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  Speaker 1: were faded and low, and often the drift of the
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  Speaker 1: weather took them clean out of sight. And all the
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  Speaker 1: nearer parts of the marsh were laced and lit by
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  Speaker 1: ditches and canals. The window at which I worked looked
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  Speaker 1: over the skyline of this crest, and it was from
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  Speaker 1: this window that I first set eyes on Cavoor. It
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  Speaker 1: was just as I was struggling with my scenario, holding
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  Speaker 1: down my mind to the sheer hard work of it,
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  Speaker 1: and naturally enough he arrested my attention. The sun had set,
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  Speaker 1: the sky was a vivid tranquility of green and yellow,
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  Speaker 1: and against that he came out black, the oddest little figure.
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  Speaker 1: He was a short, round bodied, thin legged little man,
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  Speaker 1: with a jerky quality in his motions. He had seen
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  Speaker 1: fit to clothe his extraordinary mind in a cricket cap,
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  Speaker 1: an overcoat, and cycling knickerbockers and stockings. Why he did so,
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  Speaker 1: I do not know, for he never saw and he
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  Speaker 1: never played cricket. It was a fortuitous concurrence of garments
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  Speaker 1: a rising I know not how. He gesticulated with his
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  Speaker 1: hands and arms, and jerked his head about and buzzed.
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  Speaker 1: He buzzed like something electric. You never heard such buzzing.
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  Speaker 1: And ever and again he cleared his throat with a
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  Speaker 1: most extraordinary noise. There had been rain, and that spasmodic
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  Speaker 1: walk of his was enhanced by the extreme slipperiness of
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  Speaker 1: the footpath. Exactly as he came against the sun, he stopped,
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  Speaker 1: pulled out a watch, hesitated, Then, with a sort of
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  Speaker 1: convulsive gesture, he turned and retreated with every manifestation of haste,
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  Speaker 1: no longer gesticulating, but going with ample strides that showed
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  Speaker 1: the relatively large size of his feet. They were, I remember,
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  Speaker 1: grotesquely exaggerated in size by adhesive clay to the best
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  Speaker 1: possible advantage. This occurred on the first of my sojourn,
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  Speaker 1: when my playwriting energy was at its height, and I
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  Speaker 1: regarded the incident simply as an annoying distraction, the waste
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  Speaker 1: of five minutes. I returned to my scenario. But when
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  Speaker 1: next evening the apparition was repeated with remarkable precision, and
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  Speaker 1: again the next evening, and indeed every evening when rain
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  Speaker 1: was not falling, Concentration upon the scenario became a considerable effort.
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  Speaker 1: Confound the man, I said, one would think he was
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  Speaker 1: learning to be a marionette, And for several evenings I
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  Speaker 1: cursed him pretty heartily. Then my annoyance gave way to
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  Speaker 1: amazement and curiosity, why on earth should a man do
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  Speaker 1: this thing? On the fourteenth evening, I could stand it
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  Speaker 1: no longer, and so soon as he appeared, I opened
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  Speaker 1: the French window, crossed the veranda, and directed myself to
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  Speaker 1: the point where he invariably stopped. He had his watch
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  Speaker 1: out as I came up to him. He had a
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  Speaker 1: chubby rubicund face with lightish brown eyes. Previously, I had
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  Speaker 1: seen him only against the light. One moment, sir, said I,
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  Speaker 1: as he turned he stared. One moment, he said, certainly.
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  Speaker 1: Or if you wish to speak to me for longer,
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  Speaker 1: and it is not asking too much, your moment is up,
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  Speaker 1: would it trouble you to accompany me? Not in the least,
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  Speaker 1: said I, placing myself beside him. My habits are regular,
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  Speaker 1: my time for intercourse limited. This, I presume is your
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  Speaker 1: time for exercise. It is. I come here to enjoy
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  Speaker 1: the sunset. You don't, sir, You never look at it,
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  Speaker 1: never look at it. No, I've watched you thirteen nights,
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  Speaker 1: and not once have you looked at the sunset. Not once.
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  Speaker 1: He knitted his brows like one who encounters a problem. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I enjoy the sunlight, the atmosphere. I go along this
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  Speaker 1: path through that gate. He jerked his head over his
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  Speaker 1: shoulder and round. You don't, you never have been. It's
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  Speaker 1: all nonsense. There isn't a way tonight, for instance, Oh tonight,
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  Speaker 1: let me see. Ah. I just glanced at my watch,
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  Speaker 1: saw that I had already been out just three minutes
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  Speaker 1: over the precise half hour decided there was not time
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  Speaker 1: to go round. Turned you always do? He looked at me, reflected,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps I do now, I come to think of it.
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  Speaker 1: But what was it you wanted to speak to me about?
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  Speaker 1: Why this? This? Yes, why do you do it? Every night?
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  Speaker 1: You come making a noise? Making a noise like this?
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  Speaker 1: I imitated his buzzing noise. He looked at me, and
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  Speaker 1: it was evident the buzzing awakened distaste. Do I do that?
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  Speaker 1: He asked, every blessed evening? I had no idea. He
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  Speaker 1: stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. Can it be? He said,
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  Speaker 1: that I have formed a habit. Well, it looks like it,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it. He pulled down his lower lip between finger
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  Speaker 1: and thumb. He regarded a puddle at his feet. My
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  Speaker 1: mind is much occupied, he said, And you want to
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  Speaker 1: know why, Well, sir, I can assure you that not
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  Speaker 1: only do I not know why I do these things,
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  Speaker 1: but I did not even know I did them. Come
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  Speaker 1: to think it is just as you say. I never
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  Speaker 1: have been beyond that field, and these things annoy you
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  Speaker 1: for some reason. I was beginning to relent towards him.
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  Speaker 1: Not a noy, I said, But imagine yourself writing a play.
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't well anything that needs concentration. Ah, he said,
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  Speaker 1: of course, and meditated. His expression became so eloquent of
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  Speaker 1: distress that I relented still more. After all, there is
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  Speaker 1: a touch of aggression in demanding of a man. You
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  Speaker 1: don't know why he hums on a public footpath, you see,
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  Speaker 1: he said weakly. It's a habit. Oh. I recognize that
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  Speaker 1: I must stop it, but not if it puts you out.
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  Speaker 1: After all, I had no business. It's something of a liberty.
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  Speaker 1: Not at all, sir, he said, not at all. I'm
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  Speaker 1: greatly indebted to you. I should guard myself against these things.
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  Speaker 1: In future, I will. Could I trouble you once again?
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  Speaker 1: That noise something like this, I said, tutsu tutu. But really,
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  Speaker 1: you know I am greatly obliged to you. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: I know I am getting absurdly absent minded. You are
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  Speaker 1: quite justified, sir, perfectly justified. Indeed, I am indebted to you.
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  Speaker 1: The things shall end. And now, sir, I have already
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  Speaker 1: brought you farther than I should have done. I do
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  Speaker 1: hope my impertinence not at all, sir, Not at all.
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  Speaker 1: We regarded each other for a moment. I raised my
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  Speaker 1: hat and wished him a good evening. He responded convulsively,
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  Speaker 1: and so we went our ways. At the style, I
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: looked back at his receding figure. His bearing had changed remarkably.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed limp, shrunken. The contrast with his former gesticulating,
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  Speaker 1: tusuing self took me in some absurd way as pathetic.
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  Speaker 1: I watched him out of sight, then, wishing very heartily,
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  Speaker 1: I kept to my own business. I returned to my
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  Speaker 1: bungalow in my play. The next evening. I saw nothing
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  Speaker 1: of him, nor the next, but he was very much
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  Speaker 1: in my mind, and it had occurred to me that
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  Speaker 1: as a sentimental comic character, he might serve a useful
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  Speaker 1: purpose in the development of my plot. The third day
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  Speaker 1: he called upon me for a time. I was puzzled
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  Speaker 1: to think what had brought him. He made indifferent conversation
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  Speaker 1: in the most formal way. Then abruptly he came to business.
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  Speaker 1: He wanted to buy me out of my bungalow. You see,
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  Speaker 1: he said, I don't blame you in the least, but
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  Speaker 1: you've destroyed a habit, and it disorganizes my day. I've
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  Speaker 1: walked past here for years, years, no doubt I've hummed,
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  Speaker 1: You've made all that impossible, I suggested, he might try
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  Speaker 1: some No, there is no other direction. This is the
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  Speaker 1: only one I've inquired. And now every afternoon at four
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  Speaker 1: I come to a dead wall. But my dear sir,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: if the thing is so important to you, it's vital.
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  Speaker 1: You see, I'm I'm an investigator. I am engaged in
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  Speaker 1: a scientific research. I live. He paused and seemed to think.
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  Speaker 1: Just over there, he said, and pointed suddenly dangerously near
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  Speaker 1: my eye, the house with white chimneys you see just
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: over the trees. And my circumstances are abnormal, abnormal. I
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: am on the point of completing one of the most
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  Speaker 1: important demonstrations, I can assure you, one of the most
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  Speaker 1: important demonstrations that have ever been made. It requires constant thought,
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  Speaker 1: constant mental ease, and activity. And the afternoon was my
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  Speaker 1: brightest time, effervesting with new ideas, new points of view.
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  Speaker 1: But why not come by still? It would be all different.
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  Speaker 1: I should be self conscious. I should think of you
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  Speaker 1: at your play, watching me irritated, instead of thinking of
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  Speaker 1: my work. No, I must have the bungalow, I meditated, naturally.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to think the matter over thoroughly before anything
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: decisive was said. I was generally ready enough for business
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in those days, and selling always attracted me. But in
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  Speaker 1: the first place, it was not my bungalow, and even
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: if I sold it to him at a good price,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I might get inconvenienced in the delivery of goods if
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the current owner got wind of the transaction, and in
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the second I was well undischarged. It was clearly a
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  Speaker 1: business that required delicate handling. Moreover, the possibility of his
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  Speaker 1: being in pursuit of some valuable invention also interested me.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: It occurred to me that I would like to know
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: more of this research, not with any dishonest intention, but
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: simply with an idea that to know what it was
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: would be a relief from playwriting. I threw out feelers.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: He was quite willing to supply information. Indeed, once he
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: was fairly under way, the conversation became a monologue. He
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: talked like a man long pent up who has had
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: it over with himself again and again. He talked for
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: nearly an hour, and I must confess I found it
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a pretty stiff bit of listening. But through it all
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: there was the undertone of satisfaction. One feels when one
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: is neglecting work one has set himself. During that first
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: interview I gathered very little of the drift of his work.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Half his words were technicalities entirely strange to me, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: he illustrated one or two points with what he was
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: pleased to call elementary mathematics, computing on an envelope with
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a copying ink pencil, in a manner that made it
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: hard even to seem to understand. Yes, I said, yes,
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  Speaker 1: go on. Nevertheless, I made out enough to convince me
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: that he was no mere crank playing at discoveries. In
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: spite of his crank like appearance, there was a force
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: about him that made that impossible. Whatever it was, it
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: was a thing with mechanical possibilities. He told me of
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: a workshed he had, and of three assistants, originally dropping carpenters,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: whom he had trained. Now from the workshed to the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: patent office is clearly only one step. He invited me
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to see those things. I accepted readily, and took care
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: by a remark or so to underline that the proposed
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: transfer of the bungalow remained very conveniently in suspense. At last,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: he rose to de with an apology for the length
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  Speaker 1: of his call. Talking over his work was, he said,
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  Speaker 1: a pleasure enjoyed only too rarely. It was not often
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  Speaker 1: he found such an intelligent listener as myself. He mingled
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  Speaker 1: very little with professional scientific men. So much pettiness, he explained,
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  Speaker 1: so much intrigue, And really, when one has an idea,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: a novel fertilizing idea. I don't want to be uncharitable,
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  Speaker 1: but I am a man who believes in impulses. I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: made what was perhaps a rash proposition. But you must
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: remember that I have been alone play writing in Lipny
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  Speaker 1: for fourteen days, and my compunction for his ruined walk
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: still hung about me. Why not, said I make this
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: your new habit in the place of the one I spoiled,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: at least until we can settle about the bungalow. What
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: you want is to turn over your work in your
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: mind that you have always done during your afternoon walk.
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  Speaker 1: Unfortunately that's over. You can't get things back as they were.
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  Speaker 1: But why not come and talk about your work to me?
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  Speaker 1: Use me as a sort of wall against which you
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: may throw your thoughts and catch them again. It's certain
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  Speaker 1: I don't know enough to steal your ideas myself, and
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  Speaker 1: I know no scientific men. I stopped. He was considering.
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  Speaker 1: Evidently the thing attracted him. But I'm afraid I should
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: bore you, he said, you think I'm too dull. Oh no,
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  Speaker 1: but technicalities. Anyhow, You've interested me immensely this afternoon. Of
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  Speaker 1: course it would be a great help to me. Nothing
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: clears up one's ideas so much as explaining them. Hitherto
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: my dear sir, say no more. But really, can you
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: spare the time? There is no rest like change of occupation,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I said, with profound conviction. The affair was over on
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: my verendous steps. He turned. I am already greatly indebted
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: to you, he said, I made an interrogative noise. You
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: have completely cured me of that ridiculous habit of humming,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: he explained, I think, I said. I was glad to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: be of any service to him, and he turned away. Immediately.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: The train of thought that our conversation had suggested must
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: have resumed its sway. His arms began to wave in
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: their former fashion. The faint echo of soutsu came back
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to me on the breeze. Well, after all, that was
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: not my affair. He came the next day and again
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the next day after that, and delivered two lectures on
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: physics to our mutual satisfaction. He talked with an air
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: of being extremely lucid, about the ether and tubes of
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: force and gravitational potential and things like that, And I
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: sat on my other folding chair and said, yes, go on,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I follow you to keep him going. It was tremendously
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: difficult stuff. But I do not think he ever suspected
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: how much I did not understand him. There were moments
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: when I doubted whether I was well employed, But at
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: any rate, I was resting from that confounded play now
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and then things gleamed on me clearly for a space,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: only to vanish just when I thought I had hold
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of them. Sometimes my attention failed altogether, and I would
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: give it up and sit and stare at him, wondering whether,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: after all it would not be better to use him as
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a central figure in a good farce and let all
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: this other stuff slide, And then perhaps I would catch
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: on again for a bit. At the earliest opportunity, I
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: went to see his house. It was large and carelessly furnished.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: There were no servants other than his three assistants and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: his dietary and private life were characterized by a philosophical simplicity.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: He was a water drinker, a vegetarian, and all those
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: logical disciplinary things. But the sight of his equipment settled
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: many doubts. It looked like business from cellar to attic,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: an amazing little place to find in an out of
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the way village. The ground floor rooms contained benches and apparatus,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the bakehouse and scullery boiler had developed into respectable furnaces.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Dynamos occupied the cellar, and there was a gasometer in
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the garden. He showed it to me with all the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: confiding zest of a man who had been living too
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: much alone. His seclusion was overflowing now in an excess
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of confidence, and I had the good luck to be
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the recipient. The three assistants were creditable specimens of the
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: class of handymen from which they came, conscientious, if unintelligent, strong,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: civil and willing. One Spargus, who did the cooking and
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: all the metal work, had been a sailor. A second, Gibbs,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: was a joiner, and the third was an ex jobbing
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: gardener and now general assistant. They were the merest laborers,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: all the intelligent work was done by Cavour. Theirs was
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the darkest ignorance compared even with my muddled impression. And now,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: as to the nature of these inquiries, here unhappily comes
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: a grave difficulty. I am no scientific expert, and if
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I were to attempt to set forth in the highly
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: scientific language of mister Cavour the aim to which his
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: experiments tended, I am afraid I should confuse not only
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the reader but myself, and almost certainly I should make
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: some blunder that would bring upon me the mockery of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: every up to date student of mathematical physics in the country.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: The best thing I could do, therefore, is I thought
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to give my impression to my own inexact language, without
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: any attempt to wear a garment of knowledge to which
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I have no claim. The object of mister Gevorre's search
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: was a substance that should be opaque. He used some
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: other word I have forgotten, but opaque conveys the idea
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to all forms of radiant energy. Radiant energy, he made
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: me understand, was anything like light or heat, or those
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: run genreys. There was so much talk about a year
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: or so ago, or the electric waves of Marconi, or
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: gravitation all these things, he said, radiate out from centers
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and act on bodies at a distance. Whence comes the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: term radiant energy. Now almost all substances are opaque to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: some form or other of radiant energy. Class for example,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: is transparent to light, but much less so to heat,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: so that it is useful as a fire's an alom
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: is transparent to light but blocks heat completely. A solution
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: of iodine and carbon by sulfide, on the other hand,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: completely blocks light but is quite transparent to heat. It
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: will hide a fire from you, but permit all its
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: warmth to reach you. Metals are not only opaque to
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: light and heat, but also to electrical energy, which passes
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: through both iodine solution and glass almost as though they
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: were not interposed, and so on. Now all known substances
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: are transparent to gravitation. You can use screens of various
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: sorts to cut off the light or heat, or electrical
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: influence of the Sun, or the warmth of the Earth
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: from anything. You can screen things by sheets of metal
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: from Marconi's rays, but nothing will cut off the gravitational
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: attraction of the Sun or the gravitational attraction of the Earth.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Yet why there should be nothing is hard to say.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Cavor did not see why such a substance should not exist,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and certainly I could not tell him I had never
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: thought of such a possibility before. He showed me by
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: calculations on paper, which Lord Kelvin, no doubt, or Professor
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Lodge or Professor Carl Pearson or any of those great
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: scientific people might have understood, but which simply reduced me
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: to a hopeless muddle, that not only was such a
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: substance possible, but that it must satisfy certain conditions. It
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: was an amazing piece of reasoning, much as it amazed
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and exercised me at the time. It would be impossible
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: to reproduce it here, Yes, I said to it all, Yes,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: go on, suffice it for this story that he believed
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: he might be able to manufacture this possible substance opaque
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: to gravitation, out of a complicated alloy of metals and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: something new, a new element I fancy called, I believe helium,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: which was sent to him from London in sealed stone jars.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Doubt has been thrown upon this detail, but I am
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: almost certain it was helium you had sent him in
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: sealed stone jars. It was certainly something very gaseous and thin.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: If only I had taken notes. But then how was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I to foresee the necessity of taking notes. Anyone with
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the merest germ of an imagination will understand the extraordinary
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: possibilities of such a substance, and will sympathize a little
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: with the emotion I felt as this understanding emerged from
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the haze of abstruse phrases in which Cavor expressed himself
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: comic relief in a play. Indeed, it was some time
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: before I would believe that I had interpret him aright,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and I was very careful not to ask questions that
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: would have enabled him to gage the profundity of misunderstanding
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: into which he dropped his daily exposition. But no one
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: reading the story of it here will sympathize fully, because
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: from my barren narrative it will be impossible to gather
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the strength of my conviction that this astonishing substance was
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: positively going to be made. I do not recall that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I gave my play an hour's consecutive work. At any
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: time after my visit to his house. My imagination had
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: other things to do. There seemed no limit to the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: possibilities of the stuff, whichever way I tried, I came
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: to miracles and revolutions. For example, if one wanted to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: lift a weight, however enormous, one had only to get
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a sheet of this substance beneath it, and one might
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: lift it with a straw. My first natural impulse was
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: to apply this principle to guns and irognclads, and all
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the material and methods of war, and from that to shipping, locomotion,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: building every conceivable form of human industry. The chance that
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: it brought me into the very birth chamber of this
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: new time, it was an epoch, no less, was one
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of those chances that come once in a thousand years.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: The thing unrolled, it expanded and expanded. Among other things
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I saw in it my redemption as a business man.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I saw a parent company and daughter companies, applications to
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: right of us, applications to left rings and trusts, privileges
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and concessions, spreading and spreading until one vast, stupendous cavaright
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: company ran and ruled the world, and I was in it.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I took my line straight away. I knew I was
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: staking everything, but I jumped there. And then we are
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: on absolutely the biggest thing that has ever been invented,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I said, and put the accent on wei. If you
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: want to keep me out of this, you'll have to
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: do it with a gun. I'm coming down to be
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: your fourth laborer tomorrow. He seemed surprised at my enthusiasm,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: but not a bit suspicious or hostile. Rather, he was
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: self depreciatory. He looked at me doubtfully. But do you
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: really think? He said? And your play? What about that play?
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: It's vanished, I cried, my dear sir. Don't you see
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: what you've got? Don't you see what you're going to do?
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: This was merely a rhetorical turn, But positively he didn't.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: At first, I could not believe it. He had not
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: had the beginning of the inkling of an idea. This
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: astonishing little man had been working on purely theoretical grounds
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the whole time. When he said it was the most
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: important research the world had ever seen, he simply meant
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: it squared up so many theories, settled so much that
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: was in doubt. He had troubled no more about the
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: application the stuff he was going to turn out. And
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: if he had been a machine that makes guns, this
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: was a possible substance and he was going to make
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: it flatou, as the Frenchman says, beyond that, he was childish.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: If he made it, it would go down to posterity
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: as cavaite or caverine, and he would be made an
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: FRS and his portrait given away as a scientific worthy
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: with nature and things like that. And that was all
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: he saw. He would have dropped this bombshell into the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: world as though he had discovered a new species of gnat,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: if it had not happened that I had come along
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and there it would have lain and fizzled, like one
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: or two other little things these scientific people have lit
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and dropped about us. When I realized this, it was
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I did the talking, and cavor who said go on.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I jumped up. I paced the room, gesticulating like a
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: boy of twenty. I tried to make him understand his
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: duties and responsibilities in the matter, our duties and responsibilities
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: in the matter. I assured him we might make wealth
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: enough to work any sort of social revolution. We fancied,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: we might own and order the whole world. I told
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: him of companies and patents, and the case for secret processes.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: All these things seemed to take him much as his
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: mathematics had taken me. A look of perplexity came into
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: his ruddy little face. He stammered something about indifference to wealth,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: but I brushed all that aside. He had got to
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: be rich, and it was no good his stammering. I
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: gave him to understand the sort of man I was,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and that I had had very considerable business experience. I
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: did not tell him I was an undischarged bankrupt at
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the time, because that was temporary, and I think I
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: reconcile by evident poverty with my financial claims, and quite insensibly,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and the way such projects grow, the understanding of a
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: cava right monopoly grew up between us. He was to
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: make the stuff and I was to make the boom.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I stuck like a leech to the we. You and
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't exist for me. His idea was that the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: profits I spoke of might go to endow research, but that,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of course was a matter we had to settle later.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: That's all right, I shouted, that's all right. The great point,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: as I insisted, was to get the thing done. Here
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: is a substance, I cried. No home, no factory, no fortress,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: no ship can dare to be without more universally applicable
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: even than a patent medicine. There isn't a solitary aspect
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of it, not one of its ten thousand possible uses
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: that will not make us rich, cavor beyond the dreams
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of avarice. No, he said, I begin to say. See,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it's extraordinary how one gets new points of view by
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: talking over things. And as it happens, you have just
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: talked to the right man. I suppose no one, he said,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: is absolutely averse to enormous wealth. Of course, there is
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: one thing, he paused. I stood still. It is just possible.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: You know that we may not be able to make it.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: After all, it may be one of those things that
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: are a theoretical possibility but a practical absurdity. Or when
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: we make it, there may be some little hitch. We'll
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: tackle the hitch when it comes, said I. End of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: chapter