Latest / Science Fiction Books - Daily / 14 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen, The Creature that Man Forgets. Despite the natural
- 0:05Speaker 1: hubbub round the wound of Lord Ivywood and the difficulties
- 0:08Speaker 1: of the police in finding their way to the shore,
- 0:11Speaker 1: the fugitives of the Flying Inn must almost certainly have
- 0:13Speaker 1: been captured but for a curious accident which also flowed,
- 0:17Speaker 1: as it happened, from the Great Ivywood Debate on Vegetarianism.
- 0:21Speaker 1: The comparatively late hour at which Lord Ivywood had made
- 0:24Speaker 1: his discovery had been largely due to a very long
- 0:26Speaker 1: speech which Joan had not heard, and which was delivered
- 0:29Speaker 1: immediately before the few concluding observations she had heard from
- 0:33Speaker 1: Doctor Gluck. The speech was made by an eccentric. Of course,
- 0:37Speaker 1: most of those who attended, and nearly all of those
- 0:39Speaker 1: who talked, were eccentric in one way or another. But
- 0:42Speaker 1: he was an eccentric of great wealth and good family.
- 0:45Speaker 1: An m P. A j P. A relation of Lady Enid,
- 0:49Speaker 1: a man well known in art and letters. In short,
- 0:52Speaker 1: a personality who could not be prevented from being anything.
- 0:55Speaker 1: He chose, from a revolutionist to a bore Dorian. Whimpole
- 0:59Speaker 1: had first become famous outside his own class under the
- 1:02Speaker 1: fanciful title of the Poet of the Birds, a volume
- 1:06Speaker 1: of verse expanding the several notes or cries of separate
- 1:08Speaker 1: songbirds into fantastic soliloquies. Of these feathered philosophers had really
- 1:13Speaker 1: contained a great deal of ingenuity and elegance. Unfortunately, he
- 1:18Speaker 1: was one of those who always tend to take their
- 1:20Speaker 1: own fancies seriously, in whose otherwise legitimate extravagance there is
- 1:24Speaker 1: too little of the juice of jest. Hence in his
- 1:28Speaker 1: later works, when he explained the fable of the Angel
- 1:31Speaker 1: by trying to prove that the fowls of the air
- 1:33Speaker 1: were creatures higher than man or the anthropoids, his manner
- 1:36Speaker 1: was felt to be too austere, and when he moved
- 1:39Speaker 1: an amendment to Lord Ivywood's scheme for the model village
- 1:42Speaker 1: called Peace Ways, urging that its houses should all follow
- 1:45Speaker 1: the more hygienic architecture of nests hung in trees, many
- 1:49Speaker 1: regretted that he had lost his light touch. But when
- 1:52Speaker 1: he went beyond birds and filled his poems with conjectural
- 1:55Speaker 1: psychology about all the zoological gardens, his meaning became obscure,
- 2:00Speaker 1: and Lady Susan had even described it as his bad period.
- 2:04Speaker 1: It was all the more uncomfortable reading, because he poured
- 2:06Speaker 1: forth the imaginary hymns, love songs, and war songs of
- 2:09Speaker 1: the lower animals without a word of previous explanation. Thus,
- 2:14Speaker 1: if some one seeking for an ordinary drawing room song
- 2:17Speaker 1: came on lines that were headed a desert love song,
- 2:20Speaker 1: in which began her head as high against the stars,
- 2:23Speaker 1: her hump as heaved in pride, the compliment to the
- 2:26Speaker 1: lady would at first seem startling until the reader realized
- 2:29Speaker 1: that all the characters in the idol were camels. Or
- 2:33Speaker 1: if he began a poem simply entitled the March of
- 2:35Speaker 1: Democracy and found in the first lines comrades marching evermore,
- 2:40Speaker 1: fix your teeth in floor and door, he might be
- 2:43Speaker 1: doubtful about such a policy for the masses until he
- 2:46Speaker 1: discovered that it was supposed to be addressed by an
- 2:48Speaker 1: eloquent and aspiring rat to the social solidarity of his race.
- 2:52Speaker 1: Lord Ivywood had nearly quarreled with his poetic relative over
- 2:55Speaker 1: the uproarious realism of the verses called a drinking song,
- 2:59Speaker 1: until it was carefully explained to him that the drink
- 3:01Speaker 1: was water, and that the festive company consisted of bisons.
- 3:05Speaker 1: His vision of the perfect husband as it exists in
- 3:07Speaker 1: the feelings of the young female. Walrus is thoughtful and suggestive,
- 3:12Speaker 1: but would doubtless receive many emendations from anyone who had
- 3:15Speaker 1: experienced those feelings. And in his sonic called Motherhood, he
- 3:19Speaker 1: has made the young scorpion consistent and convincing, yet somehow
- 3:22Speaker 1: not wholly lovable. In justice to him. However, it should
- 3:26Speaker 1: be remembered that he attacked the most difficult cases on principle,
- 3:30Speaker 1: declaring that there is no earthly creature that a poet
- 3:32Speaker 1: should forget. He was of the blonde type of his cousin,
- 3:36Speaker 1: with flowing fair hair and mustache, and a bright blue,
- 3:39Speaker 1: absent minded eye. He was very well dressed in the
- 3:42Speaker 1: carefully careless manner, with a brown velvet jacket and the
- 3:45Speaker 1: image on his ring of one of those beasts men
- 3:48Speaker 1: worshiped in Egypt. His speech was graceful and well worded,
- 3:51Speaker 1: and enormously long, and it was all about an oyster.
- 3:55Speaker 1: He passionately protested against the suggestion of some humanitarians who
- 3:59Speaker 1: were vegetarians and other respects, but maintained the organism so
- 4:02Speaker 1: simple might fairly be counted as exceptions. Man. He said,
- 4:07Speaker 1: even at his miserable best was always trying to excommunicate
- 4:10Speaker 1: some one citizen of the cosmos, to forget some one
- 4:13Speaker 1: creature that he should remember. Now it seemed that creature
- 4:16Speaker 1: was the oyster. He gave a long account of the
- 4:19Speaker 1: tragedy of the oyster, a really imaginative and picturesque account,
- 4:24Speaker 1: full of fantastic fishes and coral crags, crawling and climbing,
- 4:27Speaker 1: and bearded creatures streaking the sea shore in the green darkness,
- 4:30Speaker 1: in the cellars of the sea. What a horrid irony
- 4:33Speaker 1: it is, He cried, that this is the only one
- 4:35Speaker 1: of the lower creatures whom we call a native. We
- 4:38Speaker 1: speak of him and of him alone, as if he
- 4:40Speaker 1: were a native of the country, whereas indeed he is
- 4:43Speaker 1: an exile in the universe. What can be conceived more
- 4:46Speaker 1: pitiful than the eternal frenzy of the impotent amphibian? What
- 4:50Speaker 1: is more terrible than the tear of an oyster? Nature
- 4:53Speaker 1: herself has sealed it with the hard seal of eternity.
- 4:56Speaker 1: The creature a man forgets bears against him a testimony
- 4:58Speaker 1: that cannot be forgotten. For the tears of widows and
- 5:01Speaker 1: of captives are wiped away at last like the tears
- 5:03Speaker 1: of children. They vanish like the mists of morning, or
- 5:06Speaker 1: the small pools after a flood. But the tear of
- 5:09Speaker 1: the oyster is a pearl. The poet of the Birds
- 5:12Speaker 1: was so excited with his own speech that after the
- 5:15Speaker 1: meeting he walked out with a wild eye to the
- 5:17Speaker 1: motor car, which had been long awaiting him. The chauffeur,
- 5:20Speaker 1: giving some faint signs of relief. Toward home for the present,
- 5:24Speaker 1: said the poet, and stared at the moon with an
- 5:26Speaker 1: inspired face. He was very fond of motoring, finding it
- 5:30Speaker 1: fed him with inspirations, and he had been doing it
- 5:33Speaker 1: from an early hour that morning. Having enjoyed a slightly
- 5:35Speaker 1: lessened sleep. He had scarcely spoken to anybody until he
- 5:39Speaker 1: spoke to the cultured crowd at Ivywood. He did not
- 5:42Speaker 1: wish to speak to any one for many hours, yet
- 5:44Speaker 1: his ideas were racing. He had thrown on a fur
- 5:47Speaker 1: coat over his velvet jacket, but he let it fly open,
- 5:50Speaker 1: Having long forgotten the coldness and the splendor of the
- 5:52Speaker 1: moon struck night, He realized only two things, the swiftness
- 5:56Speaker 1: of his car and the swiftness of his thoughts. He
- 5:59Speaker 1: felt as it were a fury of omniscience, he seemed,
- 6:02Speaker 1: flying with every bird that sped or spun above the woods,
- 6:05Speaker 1: with every squirrel that had leaped and tumbled within them,
- 6:08Speaker 1: with every tree that had swung under and sustained the blast.
- 6:12Speaker 1: Yet in a few moments he leaned forward and tapped
- 6:14Speaker 1: the glass frontage of the car, and the chauffeur, suddenly,
- 6:17Speaker 1: squaring his shoulders, jarringly, stopped the wheels. Dorian Wimpole had
- 6:21Speaker 1: just seen something in the clear moonlight by the roadside
- 6:23Speaker 1: which appealed both to this and to the other side
- 6:26Speaker 1: of his tradition, something that appealed to Wimpole as well
- 6:29Speaker 1: as to Dorian. Two shabby looking men, one in tattered
- 6:32Speaker 1: gaiters and the other in what looked like the remains
- 6:35Speaker 1: of fancy dress, with the addition of hair of so
- 6:37Speaker 1: wild a red that it looked like a wig, were
- 6:39Speaker 1: halted under the hedge, apparently loading a donkey cart. At
- 6:43Speaker 1: least two rounded, rudely cylindrical objects, looking more or less
- 6:47Speaker 1: like tubs, stood out in the road beside the wheels,
- 6:49Speaker 1: along with a sort of loose wooden post that lay
- 6:52Speaker 1: along the road beside them. As a matter of fact,
- 6:54Speaker 1: the man and the old gaiters had just been feeding
- 6:56Speaker 1: and watering the donkey, and was now adjusting its harness
- 6:59Speaker 1: more easy. But Dorian Whimpole naturally did not expect that
- 7:03Speaker 1: sort of thing from that sort of man. There swelled
- 7:06Speaker 1: up in him the sense that his omnipotence went beyond
- 7:08Speaker 1: the poetical, that he was a gentleman, a magistrate, an
- 7:11Speaker 1: m P and j P and so on. This callousness
- 7:15Speaker 1: or ignorance about animals should not go on while he
- 7:17Speaker 1: was a j P, especially since Ivywood's last act. He
- 7:21Speaker 1: simply strode across to the stationary cart and said, you
- 7:24Speaker 1: are overloading that animal, and it is forfeited, and you
- 7:27Speaker 1: must come with me to the police station. Humphrey Pump,
- 7:30Speaker 1: who was very considerate to animals and had always tried
- 7:32Speaker 1: to be considerate to gentlemen in spite of having put
- 7:34Speaker 1: a bullet into one of their legs, was simply too
- 7:37Speaker 1: astounded and distressed to make any answer at all. He
- 7:40Speaker 1: moved a step or two backward and stared with brown
- 7:42Speaker 1: blinking eyes at the poet, the donkey, the cask, the cheese,
- 7:46Speaker 1: and the signboard laying in the road. But Captain Delroy
- 7:49Speaker 1: with the quicker recovery of his national temperament swept the
- 7:52Speaker 1: poet and magistrate a vast fantastic bow, and said, with
- 7:56Speaker 1: agreeable impudence, interested in donkeys, no doubt, I am interested
- 8:01Speaker 1: in all things men forget, answered the poet, with a
- 8:03Speaker 1: fine touch of pride, but mostly in those like this
- 8:06Speaker 1: that are most easily forgotten. Somehow, from those two fir sentences,
- 8:10Speaker 1: Pump realized that these two eccentric aristocrats had unconsciously recognized
- 8:15Speaker 1: each other. The fact that it was unconscious seemed somehow
- 8:18Speaker 1: to exclude him all the more. He stirred a little
- 8:21Speaker 1: the moonlit dust of the road with his rather dilapidated boots,
- 8:24Speaker 1: and eventually strolled across to speak to the chauffeur. Is
- 8:27Speaker 1: the next police station far from here? He asked. The
- 8:31Speaker 1: chauffeur answered with one syllable, of which the nearest literal
- 8:34Speaker 1: rendering is deno. Other spellings have been attempted, but the
- 8:37Speaker 1: sentiment expressed as that of agnosticism. But something of special
- 8:41Speaker 1: brutality of abbreviation made the shrewd and therefore sensitive mister
- 8:44Speaker 1: Pomp look at the man's face, and he saw it
- 8:47Speaker 1: was not only the moonlight that made it white, with
- 8:49Speaker 1: that dumb delicacy that was so English in him. Pump
- 8:52Speaker 1: looked at the man again and saw he was leaning
- 8:54Speaker 1: heavily on the car with one arm, and saw that
- 8:56Speaker 1: the arm was shaking. He understood his countrymen enough to
- 8:59Speaker 1: know that whatever he said, he must say in a
- 9:01Speaker 1: careless manner. I hope it's nearer to your place. You
- 9:04Speaker 1: must be a bit done up. Ow hell, said the driver,
- 9:07Speaker 1: and spat on the road. Pump was sympathetically silent, and
- 9:11Speaker 1: mister wimple chauffeur broke out incoherently, as if in another place,
- 9:15Speaker 1: blarsted beauties of the break and no breakfast, blairstood, lunch,
- 9:18Speaker 1: heavy wood and no lunch, blasted black, everlasting hour's outside
- 9:22Speaker 1: where he is a sich and champagne, and then it's
- 9:24Speaker 1: a darkey. You don't mean to say, said Pump, in
- 9:26Speaker 1: a very serious voice, that you've had no food to day?
- 9:30Speaker 1: Ow No, replied the cockney, with the irony of the
- 9:32Speaker 1: death bed. Ow, of course not. Pump strolled back into
- 9:36Speaker 1: the road again, picked up the cheese in his left
- 9:38Speaker 1: hand and landed it on the seat beside the driver.
- 9:41Speaker 1: Then his right hand went to one of his large, loose,
- 9:43Speaker 1: equivocal pockets, and the blade of a big jackknife caught
- 9:46Speaker 1: and re caught the steady splendors of the moon. The
- 9:48Speaker 1: driver stared for several instants at the cheese, with the
- 9:51Speaker 1: knife shaking in his hand. Then he began to hack it,
- 9:53Speaker 1: and in that white, witchlike light, the happiness of his
- 9:56Speaker 1: face was almost horrible. Pump was wise in all such things,
- 10:00Speaker 1: and knew that just as a little food will sometimes
- 10:02Speaker 1: prevent sheer intoxication, so a little stimulant will sometimes prevent
- 10:06Speaker 1: sudden and dangerous indigestion. It was practically impossible to make
- 10:10Speaker 1: the man stop eating cheese. It was far better to
- 10:12Speaker 1: give him a very little of the rum, especially as
- 10:15Speaker 1: it was a very good rum, and better than anything
- 10:17Speaker 1: he could find in any of the public houses that
- 10:19Speaker 1: were still permitted. He walked across the road again and
- 10:22Speaker 1: picked up the small cask, which he put on the
- 10:24Speaker 1: other side of the cheese, and from which he filled
- 10:26Speaker 1: in his own manner. The little cop he carried in
- 10:27Speaker 1: his pocket. But at the sight of this, the cockney's
- 10:30Speaker 1: eyes lit up at once with terror and desire. But
- 10:32Speaker 1: you can't do it, he whispered hoarsely. It's the police.
- 10:36Speaker 1: It's kau for that. With no doctor's letter, nor signboard
- 10:39Speaker 1: nor nutting, mister Humphrey Pump made yet another march back
- 10:42Speaker 1: into the road. When he got there, he hesitated for
- 10:45Speaker 1: the first time, but it was quite clear from the
- 10:47Speaker 1: attitude of the two insane aristocrats who were arguing and
- 10:50Speaker 1: posturing in the road that they would notice nothing except
- 10:53Speaker 1: each other. He picked the loose post off the road
- 10:55Speaker 1: and brought it to the car, humorously propping it erect
- 10:58Speaker 1: in the aperture between keg and The little glass of
- 11:01Speaker 1: rum was wavering in the poor chauffeur's hand, exactly as
- 11:04Speaker 1: the big knife had done. But when he looked up
- 11:06Speaker 1: and actually saw the wooden sign above him, he seemed
- 11:09Speaker 1: not so much to pluck up his courage, but rather
- 11:11Speaker 1: to drag up some forgotten courage from the foundations of
- 11:14Speaker 1: some unfathomable sea. It was indeed the forgotten courage of
- 11:18Speaker 1: the people. He looked once at the bleak, black pine
- 11:21Speaker 1: woods around him, and took the mouthful of golden liquid
- 11:23Speaker 1: at a gulp, as if it were a fairy potion.
- 11:26Speaker 1: He sat silent, and then very slowly a sort of
- 11:28Speaker 1: stony glitter began to come into his eyes. The brown
- 11:31Speaker 1: and vigilant eyes of Humphrey Pomp were studying him with
- 11:34Speaker 1: some anxiety or even fear. He did look rather like
- 11:37Speaker 1: a man enchanted or turned to stone. But he spoke
- 11:40Speaker 1: very suddenly the blighter. He said, I'll give him mal,
- 11:43Speaker 1: I'll give him bleeding al. I'll give him something what
- 11:46Speaker 1: he don't expect. What do you mean, asked the innkeeper. Why,
- 11:50Speaker 1: answered the chauffeur with abrupt composure. I'll give him a
- 11:53Speaker 1: little donkey. Mister Pump looked troubled. Do you think, he observed,
- 11:58Speaker 1: affecting to speak lightly, that he's fit to be trusted
- 12:01Speaker 1: even with a little donkey? Oh? Yes, said the man.
- 12:05Speaker 1: He's very amiable with donkeys and donkeys we is to
- 12:08Speaker 1: be amiable with them. Pump still looked at him, doubtfully,
- 12:11Speaker 1: appearing or affecting not to follow his meaning. Then he
- 12:14Speaker 1: looked equally anxious across at the other two men, but
- 12:16Speaker 1: they were still talking different As they were in every
- 12:19Speaker 1: other way. They were of the sort who forget everything class, choral, time,
- 12:23Speaker 1: place and physical facts in front of them, and the
- 12:26Speaker 1: lust of lucid explanation and equal argument. Thus, when the
- 12:29Speaker 1: captain began by lightly alluding to the fact that, after all,
- 12:32Speaker 1: it was his donkey, since he had bought it from
- 12:34Speaker 1: a tinker for a just price. The police station practically
- 12:37Speaker 1: vanished from Wimple's mind, and I feared the donkey carte. Also,
- 12:41Speaker 1: nothing remained but the necessity of dissipating the superstition of
- 12:44Speaker 1: personal property. I own nothing, said the poet, waving his
- 12:48Speaker 1: hands outward. I own nothing save in the sense that
- 12:51Speaker 1: I own everything. It all depends whether wealth or power
- 12:54Speaker 1: be used for or against the higher purposes of the cosmos, indeed,
- 12:59Speaker 1: replied Deli. And how does your motor car serve the
- 13:02Speaker 1: higher purposes of the cosmos? It helps me, said mister Wimpole,
- 13:06Speaker 1: with honorable simplicity, to produce my poems. And if it
- 13:10Speaker 1: could be used for some higher purpose, if such a
- 13:12Speaker 1: thing could be if some new purpose had come into
- 13:14Speaker 1: the cosmos's head by accident, inquired the other. I suppose
- 13:18Speaker 1: it would cease to be your property, certainly, replied the
- 13:21Speaker 1: dignified Dorian. I should not complain, nor have you any
- 13:25Speaker 1: title to complain, when the donkey ceases to be yours,
- 13:27Speaker 1: when you depress it in the cosmic scale, What makes
- 13:30Speaker 1: you think asked Delroy, that I wanted to depress it.
- 13:34Speaker 1: It is my firm belief, replied Dorian Wimpole, sternly, that
- 13:38Speaker 1: you wanted to ride on it. For indeed the captain
- 13:40Speaker 1: had once repeated his playful gesture of putting his large
- 13:43Speaker 1: leg across. Is not that so, no, answered the captain innocently.
- 13:49Speaker 1: I never ride on a donkey. I'm afraid of it.
- 13:52Speaker 1: Afraid of a donkey, cried Wempole, incredulously, afraid of anhistorical comparison,
- 13:57Speaker 1: said Delroy. There was a short pause in Wimpole said
- 14:00Speaker 1: coolly enough. Oh well, we've outlived those comparisons easily, answered
- 14:06Speaker 1: the Irish captain. It is wonderful, how easily when outlive
- 14:09Speaker 1: some one else's crucifixion. In this case, said the other grimly,
- 14:13Speaker 1: I think it is the donkey's crucifixion. Why you must
- 14:16Speaker 1: have drawn that old Roman caricature of the crucified donkey,
- 14:19Speaker 1: said Patrick Delroy, with an air of some wonder how
- 14:21Speaker 1: well you have worn Why you look so young? Well,
- 14:24Speaker 1: of course, if this donkey is crucified, he must be uncrucified.
- 14:28Speaker 1: But are you quite sure, he added, very gravely, that
- 14:30Speaker 1: you know how to uncrucify a donkey. I assure you
- 14:34Speaker 1: it's one of the rarest of human arts, all a
- 14:36Speaker 1: matter of knack. It's like the doctor's with the rare diseases.
- 14:39Speaker 1: You know, the necessity so seldom arises. Granted that by
- 14:43Speaker 1: the higher purposes of the cosmos, I am unfit to
- 14:46Speaker 1: look after this donkey, I must still feel a faint
- 14:49Speaker 1: shiver of responsibility in passing him on to you. Will
- 14:52Speaker 1: you understand this donkey? He is a delicate minded donkey.
- 14:55Speaker 1: He is a complex donkey. How can I be certain
- 14:58Speaker 1: that on so short and acquaint you will understand every
- 15:02Speaker 1: shade of a little likes and dislikes. The dog koodle,
- 15:05Speaker 1: who had been sitting as still as the sphinx under
- 15:07Speaker 1: the shadow of the pine trees, waddled out for an
- 15:10Speaker 1: instant into the middle of the road, and then returned.
- 15:12Speaker 1: He ran out when a slight noise as of rotary grinding,
- 15:15Speaker 1: was heard, and ran back when it had ceased. But
- 15:18Speaker 1: Dorian Wimple was much too keen on his philosophical discovery
- 15:21Speaker 1: to notice either dog or wheel. I shall not sit
- 15:24Speaker 1: on its back, anyhow, he said proudly. But if that
- 15:27Speaker 1: were all, it would be a small matter. It is
- 15:29Speaker 1: enough for you that you have left it in the
- 15:31Speaker 1: hands of the only person who could really understand it,
- 15:33Speaker 1: one who searches the skies and seas so as not
- 15:36Speaker 1: to neglect the smallest creature. This is a very curious creature,
- 15:40Speaker 1: said the captain anxiously. He is all sorts of odd antipathius.
- 15:44Speaker 1: He can't stand a motor car, for instance, especially one
- 15:47Speaker 1: that throbs like that while it's standing still. He doesn't
- 15:50Speaker 1: mind a fur coat so much, but if you wear
- 15:51Speaker 1: a brown velvet jacket under it, he bites you, and
- 15:54Speaker 1: you must keep him out of the way of a
- 15:55Speaker 1: certain kind of people. I don't suppose you've met them,
- 15:58Speaker 1: but they always think that anybody with less than two
- 16:00Speaker 1: hundred years drunk and very cruel, and that anybody with
- 16:02Speaker 1: more than two thousand a year is conducting the day
- 16:05Speaker 1: of judgment. If you will keep our dear donkey from
- 16:07Speaker 1: the society of such persons, Hello, Hello, Hello. He turned
- 16:11Speaker 1: in genuine disturbance and dashed after the dog, who had
- 16:14Speaker 1: dashed after the motor car and jumped inside. The captain
- 16:17Speaker 1: jumped in after the dog to pull him out again,
- 16:19Speaker 1: but before he could do so, he found the car
- 16:21Speaker 1: was flying along too fast for any such leap. He
- 16:24Speaker 1: looked up and saw the sign of the old ship
- 16:26Speaker 1: erect in the front like a rigid banner, and pump
- 16:29Speaker 1: with his cask and cheese sitting solidly beside the driver.
- 16:32Speaker 1: The thing was more of an earthquake in transformation to
- 16:34Speaker 1: him even than to any of the others. But he
- 16:37Speaker 1: rose waveringly to his feet and shouted out to whimpole,
- 16:39Speaker 1: You've left it in the right hands. I've never been
- 16:41Speaker 1: cruel to a motor. In the moonlight of the magic
- 16:44Speaker 1: pinewood far behind, Dorian and the donkey were left looking
- 16:47Speaker 1: at each other, to the mystical mind, when it is
- 16:50Speaker 1: a mind at all, which is by no means always
- 16:52Speaker 1: the case, there are no two things more impressive and
- 16:55Speaker 1: symbolical than a poet and a donkey. And the donkey
- 16:58Speaker 1: was a very gentle donkey, and the poet was a
- 17:01Speaker 1: very gentle poet. However lawfully he might be mistaken for
- 17:04Speaker 1: the other animal at times, the interest of the donkey
- 17:07Speaker 1: and the poet will never be known. The interest of
- 17:09Speaker 1: the poet and the donkey was perfectly genuine and survived
- 17:12Speaker 1: even that appalling private interview in the owlish secrecy of
- 17:15Speaker 1: the woods. But I think even the poet would have
- 17:18Speaker 1: been enlightened if he had seen the white, set, frantic
- 17:20Speaker 1: face of the man of the driver's seat of his
- 17:22Speaker 1: vanishing motor. If he had seen it, he might have
- 17:24Speaker 1: remembered the name, or perhaps even begun to understand the
- 17:27Speaker 1: nature of a certain animal, which is neither the donkey
- 17:30Speaker 1: nor the oyster, but the creature whom man has always
- 17:33Speaker 1: found it easiest to forget, since the hour he forgot
- 17:36Speaker 1: God in a garden, end of Chapter fourteen.