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007 - The Unprecedented Architecture of Commander Blair · Tales of the Long Bow

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Speaker 1: Chapter seven of Tales of the Longbow. This is a
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Read by Wayne Cook. Tales of the Longbow by G. K. Chesterton.
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Speaker 1: The unprecedented architecture of Commander Blair, the Earl of Eden,
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Speaker 1: had become Prime Minister for the third time, and his
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Speaker 1: face and figure were therefore familiar in the political cartoons
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Speaker 1: and even in the public streets. His yellow hair and
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Speaker 1: lean and springy figure gave a facetious air of youth,
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Speaker 1: but his face, on a closer study, looked lined and wrinkled,
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Speaker 1: and gave almost a shock of decrepitude. He was, in
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Speaker 1: truth a man of great experience and dexterity in his
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Speaker 1: own profession. He had just succeeded in routing the Socialist
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Speaker 1: Party and overthrowing the Socialist government, largely by the use
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Speaker 1: of certain rhymed mottoes and maxims, which he had himself
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Speaker 1: invented with considerable amusement. His great slogan of don't nationalize
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Speaker 1: but rationalize was generally believed to have led him to victory,
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Speaker 1: but at the moment when this story begins, he had
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Speaker 1: other things to think of. He had just received an
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Speaker 1: urgent request for consultation from three of his most prominent supporters,
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Speaker 1: Lord Norman Towers, Sir Horace Hunter, Obe, the great advocate
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Speaker 1: of scientific politics, and mister R. Lowe, the philanthropist. They
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Speaker 1: were confronted with a problem, and their problem concerned the
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Speaker 1: sudden madness of an American millionaire. The Prime Ministers was
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Speaker 1: not unacquainted with American millionaires, even those whose conduct suggested
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Speaker 1: that they were hardly representative of a normal or national type.
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Speaker 1: There was the Great Grigg, the millionaire inventor, who had
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Speaker 1: pressed upon the War Office the scheme for finishing the
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Speaker 1: war at a blow. It consisted of electrocuting the Kaiser
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Speaker 1: by wireless telegraphy. There was mister Knapper of Nebraska, whose
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Speaker 1: negotiations for removing Shakespeare's Cliff to America as a symbol
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Speaker 1: of Anglo Saxon unity were unaccountably frustrated by the firm
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Speaker 1: refusal of the American Republic to send US Plymouth Rock
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Speaker 1: in exchange. And there was that charming and cultured Bostonian
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Speaker 1: Colonel Houppo, whom all England welcomed in his crusade for
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Speaker 1: Purity and the League of the Lily, until England discovered
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Speaker 1: with considerable surprise that the American embassador and all respectable
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Speaker 1: Americans flatly refused to meet the colonel, whose record at
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Speaker 1: home was that of a very narrow escape from sing Sing.
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Speaker 1: But the problem of Enoch Oates, who had made his
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Speaker 1: money in pork, was something profoundly different. As Lord Eden's
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Speaker 1: three supporters eagerly explained to him, seated around a garden
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Speaker 1: table at his beautiful country seat in Somerset, mister Oates
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Speaker 1: had done something that the mannest millionaire had never thought
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Speaker 1: of doing before. Up to a certain point. He had
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Speaker 1: proceeded in a manner normal to such a foreigner. He
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Speaker 1: had purchased amid general approval in a state covering about
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Speaker 1: a quarter of a county, and it was expected that
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Speaker 1: he would make it a field for some of those
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Speaker 1: American experiments in temperance or eugenics for which the English
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Speaker 1: agricultural populace offer a sort of virgin soil. Instead of that,
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Speaker 1: suddenly went mad and made a present of his land
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Speaker 1: to his tenants, so that, by an unprecedented anomaly, the
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Speaker 1: farms became the property of the farmers. That an American
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Speaker 1: millionaire should take away English things from England, English rents,
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Speaker 1: English relics, English pictures, English cathedrals or cliffs of Dover
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Speaker 1: was a natural operation to which everybody was by this
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Speaker 1: time accustomed, But that an American millionaire should give English
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Speaker 1: land to English people was an unwarrantable interference and tanamount
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Speaker 1: to an alien enemy, stirring up revolution enok Oates had
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Speaker 1: therefore been summoned to the Council and sat scowling at
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Speaker 1: the table as if he were on the dock. Results
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Speaker 1: most deplorable already, said Sir Horace Hunter, in his rather
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Speaker 1: loud voice. Give you an example, my lord. People of
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Speaker 1: the name of Dale in Somerset took in a lunatic
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Speaker 1: as a larger may have been a homicidal maniac, for
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Speaker 1: all I know. Some do say that he had a
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Speaker 1: great cannon or culverin sticking out of his bedroom window.
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Speaker 1: But with no responsible management of the estate, no landlord,
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Speaker 1: no lawyer, no educated person anywhere, there was nothing to
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Speaker 1: prevent their letting the bedroom to a Bengal tiger. Anyhow,
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Speaker 1: the man was mad, rushed raving on to the platform
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Speaker 1: of the Astronomical Congress talking about lovely women and the
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Speaker 1: cow that jumped over the moon. That damned agitator Pierce,
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Speaker 1: who used to be in the Flying Corps, was in
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Speaker 1: the hall and made a riot and carried the crazy
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Speaker 1: fellow off in an aeroplane. That's the sort of thing
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Speaker 1: you'll have happening all over the place if these ignorant
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Speaker 1: fellows are allowed to do just as they like. It's
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Speaker 1: quite true, said Lord Norman Towers. I could give many
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Speaker 1: other examples. They say that owen Hood, another of these eccentrics,
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Speaker 1: has actually bought one of these little farms and stuck
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Speaker 1: it all round with absurd battlements and a moat and drawbridge,
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Speaker 1: with the motto the Englishman's house is his castle. I think,
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Speaker 1: said the Prime Minister quietly, that however English the Englishman
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Speaker 1: may be, he will find his castle is a castle
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Speaker 1: in Spain, not to say a castle in the air.
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Speaker 1: Mister Olts, he said, addressing very courteously the big brooding
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Speaker 1: American at the under end of the table, Please do
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Speaker 1: not imagine that I cannot sympathize with such romances, although
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Speaker 1: they are only in the air. But I think in
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Speaker 1: all sincerity that you will find they are unsuited to
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Speaker 1: the English clime at ego in Arcadia. You know, we
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Speaker 1: have all had such dreams of all men piping in Arcady.
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Speaker 1: But after all you have already paid the piper, and
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Speaker 1: if you are wise, I think you can still call
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Speaker 1: the tune. Gives me great Satisfactionist say it's too late,
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Speaker 1: growled oakes. I want them to learn to play and
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Speaker 1: pay for themselves. But you want them to learn, said
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Speaker 1: Lord Eden gently. And I should not be in too
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Speaker 1: much of a hurry to call it too late. It
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Speaker 1: seems to me that the door is still open for
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Speaker 1: a reasonable compromise. I understand that the deed of gift,
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Speaker 1: considered as a legal instrument, is still the subjects of
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Speaker 1: some legal discussion, and may well be subject to revision.
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Speaker 1: I happen to be talking of it yesterday with the
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Speaker 1: law offices of the Crown, and I am sure that
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Speaker 1: the least hint that you yourself, I take it you mean,
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Speaker 1: said Miss Rhoads, with great deliberation, that you'll tell your
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Speaker 1: lawyers it'll pay them to pick a hole in the deal.
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Speaker 1: That that is what we call the bluff western humor,
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Speaker 1: said Lord Eden, smiling. But I only mean that we
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Speaker 1: do a great deal in this country. By reconsideration and revision.
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Speaker 1: We make mistakes and undermake them. We have a phrase
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Speaker 1: for it in our history books. We call it the
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Speaker 1: flexibility of an unwritten constitution. We have a phrase for it, too,
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Speaker 1: said the American reflectively. We call it graft. Really, cried
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Speaker 1: Norman Towers, a little bristly man with sudden shrillness. I
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Speaker 1: did not know you were so scrupulous in your own methods.
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Speaker 1: Mouf anthrupuleth, said mister Lowe, virtuously enough. Oates rose slowly,
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Speaker 1: like an enormous leviathan, raising to the surface of the sea.
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Speaker 1: His large, sallow face had never changed expression, but he
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Speaker 1: had the air of one drifting dreamily away. Well, said he,
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Speaker 1: I dare say, it's true. I've done some graft in
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Speaker 1: my time, and a good many deals that weren't what
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Speaker 1: you might call modeled on the Sermon on the Mount.
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Speaker 1: But if I smashed people, it was because they were
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Speaker 1: all out to smash me. And if some of them
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Speaker 1: were poor, they were the sort that were ready to
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Speaker 1: shoot or knife or blow me to bits. And I
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Speaker 1: tell you, in my country, the whole lot of you
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Speaker 1: would be liable to be lynched or tarred and feathered
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Speaker 1: tomorrow if you talked about lawyers taking away people's land
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Speaker 1: when once they'd got it. Maybe the English climate's different
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Speaker 1: as you say, but I'm going to see it through.
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Speaker 1: As for you, mister Rosenbaum, my name is low, said
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Speaker 1: the philanthropist. I cannot see why anyone would adject to youthing.
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Speaker 1: My name not on your life, said mister Oakes, affably,
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Speaker 1: seems to me a pretty appropriate name. He drifted heavily
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Speaker 1: from the room, and the four other men were left
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Speaker 1: staring at a riddle. He's going on with it, or
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Speaker 1: rather they're going on with it, groaned Horace Hunter. And
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Speaker 1: what the devil is to be done? Now? It really
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Speaker 1: looks as if he were right in calling it too late,
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Speaker 1: said Lord Norman Towers bitterly. I can't think of anything
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Speaker 1: to be done, I can, said the Prime Minister. They
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Speaker 1: all looked at him, but none of them could read
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Speaker 1: the undecipherable subtleties in his old and wrinkled face under
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Speaker 1: his youthful yellow hair. Three sources of civilization are not exhausted,
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Speaker 1: he said grimly. That's what the old governments used to
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Speaker 1: say when they started shooting people. Well, I could understand you, gentlemen,
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Speaker 1: feeling inclined to shoot people. Now, I suppose it seems
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Speaker 1: to you that all your power in the state, which
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Speaker 1: you wield with such public spirit. Of course, all Sir
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Speaker 1: Horace's health reforms, the Norman Tau's new estate, and so on,
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Speaker 1: are all broken to bits, to written, little bits of assisticity.
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Speaker 1: What's to become of a governing class if it doesn't
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Speaker 1: hold all the land? Eh? Well, I'll tell you I
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Speaker 1: know the next move, and the time has come to
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Speaker 1: take it. But what is it? Demanded Sir Horace. The
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Speaker 1: time has come, said the Prime Minister, to nationalize the land.
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Speaker 1: Sir Horace. Hunter rose from his chair, opened his mouth,
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Speaker 1: shut it, and sat down again, all with what he
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Speaker 1: himself might have called a reflex action. But that is socialism,
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Speaker 1: cried Lord Norman Towers, his eyes standing out of his head.
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Speaker 1: To socialism, don't you think, mused the Prime Minister. Better
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Speaker 1: call it true socialism, just the sort of thing to
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Speaker 1: be remembered at elections. Theirs is socialism and ours is
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Speaker 1: true socialism. Do you really mean, my lord, cried Hunter,
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Speaker 1: in a heat of sincerity stronger than the snobbery of
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Speaker 1: a lifetime, that you are going to support the bolshes, now,
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Speaker 1: said Eden, with the smile of a sphinx. I mean
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Speaker 1: the bowlshees are going to support me idiots. After a silence,
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Speaker 1: he added in a more wistful tone. Of course, as
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Speaker 1: a matter of sentiment, it is a little sad. All
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Speaker 1: are fine old English castles and manners and homes of
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Speaker 1: the gentry. They will become public property like post offices.
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Speaker 1: I suppose when I think of the happy hours I
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Speaker 1: have myself passed at Norman Tower's. He smiled across at
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Speaker 1: the nobleman of that name and went on, and Sir Horace,
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Speaker 1: as now I believe the joy of living in Warbridge Castle,
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Speaker 1: fine old place, dear me, yes, and I think mister
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Speaker 1: Low has a castle, though the name escapes me both
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Speaker 1: with castle, said mister Low rather sulkily. But I say,
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Speaker 1: cried Sir Horace rising. What becomes of don't nationalize but rationalize,
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Speaker 1: I suppose, replied Eden lightly. It will have to be
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Speaker 1: don't rationalize but nationalize. It comes to the same thing. Besides,
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Speaker 1: we can easily get a new motto of some sort.
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Speaker 1: For instance, we, after all all, the Patriotic Party, the
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Speaker 1: National Party. What about let the nationalists nationalize. Well, all
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Speaker 1: I can say is, began Norman Towers explosively. Compensation and
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Speaker 1: there will be compensation, of course, said the Prime Minister soothingly.
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Speaker 1: A great deal can be done with compensation if you
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Speaker 1: will all turn up here this day week, say at
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Speaker 1: four o'clock, I think I can lay all the plans
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Speaker 1: before you. When they did turn up next week and
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Speaker 1: were shown again into the Prime Minister's sunny garden, they
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Speaker 1: found that the plans were indeed laid out before them,
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Speaker 1: for the table that stood on the sunny lawn was
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Speaker 1: covered with large and small maps and a mass of
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Speaker 1: official documents. Mister Eustace Pim, one of the Prime Minister's
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Speaker 1: numerous private secretaries, was hovering over them, and the Prime
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Speaker 1: Minister himself was sitting at the head of the table,
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Speaker 1: starting one of them with an intelligent frown. I thought
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Speaker 1: you'd like to hear the terms of the arrangements, said he.
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Speaker 1: I'm afraid we must all make sacrifices in the cause
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Speaker 1: of progress. Oh progress me, cried Norman Towers, losing patience.
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Speaker 1: I want to know if you really mean that my
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Speaker 1: estate it comes under the Department of Castle and Abbey
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Speaker 1: Estates in section four, said Lord Eden, referring to the
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Speaker 1: paper before him. By the provisions of the new Bill,
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Speaker 1: the public control in such cases will be vested in
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Speaker 1: the Lord Lieutenant of the county. In the particular case
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Speaker 1: of your castle, let me see why. Yes, of course
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Speaker 1: you are the Lord Lieutenant of that county. Little Lord
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Speaker 1: Norman Towers was staring with his stiff hair all standing
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Speaker 1: on end, but a new look was dawning in his shrewd,
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Speaker 1: though small featured face. The case of Woolbridge Castle is different,
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Speaker 1: said the Prime Minister. It happens, unfortunately, to stand in
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Speaker 1: a district desolated by all the recent troubles about swine fever,
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Speaker 1: touching which the Health Controller here he bowed to, Sir
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Speaker 1: Horace Hunter, has shown such admirable activity it has been
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Speaker 1: necessary to place the whole of this district in the
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Speaker 1: hands of the Health Controller, that he may study any
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Speaker 1: traces of swine fever that may be found in the castle,
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Speaker 1: the cathedral of the vicarage, and so on. So much
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Speaker 1: for that case, which stands somewhat apart, and the others
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Speaker 1: are mostly normal. Rosenbaum Castle, I should say, Rosewood Castle,
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Speaker 1: being of a later date, comes under Section five and
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Speaker 1: the appointment of a permanent castle custodian is left to
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Speaker 1: the discretion of the government. In this case, the Government
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Speaker 1: has decided to appoint mister rosewood Low to the post
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Speaker 1: in recognition of his local services to social science and economics.
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Speaker 1: In all of these cases, of course, due compensation will
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Speaker 1: be paid to the present orders of the estates, and
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Speaker 1: ample salaries and expenses of entertainment and paid to the
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Speaker 1: new officials, that the places may be kept in a
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Speaker 1: manner worthy of their historical and national character. He paused
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Speaker 1: as if for cheers, and Sir Horace was vaguely irritated
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Speaker 1: into saying, but look here my castle. Damn it all,
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Speaker 1: said the Prime Minister, with his first flash of impatience
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Speaker 1: and sincerity. Can't you see you'll get twice as much
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Speaker 1: as before. First you'll be compensated for losing your castle,
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Speaker 1: and then it'll be paid for keeping it. My lord,
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Speaker 1: said Lord Norman Towers humbly. I apologize for anything I
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Speaker 1: may have said or suggested I ought to have known.
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Speaker 1: I stood in the presence of a great English statesman.
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Speaker 1: Oh it's easy enough, said Lord Eden frankly. Look how
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Speaker 1: easily we remained in the saddle. In spite of democratic elections,
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Speaker 1: how we managed to dominate the commons as well as
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Speaker 1: the lords. It'll be the same with what they call socialism.
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Speaker 1: We shall still be there, only we shall be called
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Speaker 1: bureaucrats instead of aristocrats. I see it all now, cried Hunter,
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Speaker 1: And by Heaven, it'll be the end of all this
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Speaker 1: confounded demagoguery of three acres and a cow. I think so,
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Speaker 1: said the Prime Minister with a smile, and began to
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Speaker 1: fold up the large mats. As he was folding up
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Speaker 1: the last and largest, he suddenly stopped and said hello.
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Speaker 1: A letter was lying in the middle of the table,
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Speaker 1: A letter in a sealed envelope, and one in which
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Speaker 1: he evidently did not recognize as any part of his
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Speaker 1: paper paraphernalia. Where did this letter come from? He asked,
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Speaker 1: rather sharply. Did you put it here, Eustace, No, said
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Speaker 1: mister Pimsering, I never saw before. It didn't come with
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Speaker 1: your letters this morning. It didn't come by post at all,
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Speaker 1: said Lord Eden. And none of this elevens brought it in.
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Speaker 1: How the devil did it get out here in the garden.
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Speaker 1: He ripped it open with his finger and remained for
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Speaker 1: some time staring in mystification at its contents. Welcin Castle,
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Speaker 1: September fourth, nineteen Dear Lord Eden, as I understand you
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Speaker 1: are making public provision for the future disposal of our
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Speaker 1: historic national castles such as Warbridge Castle, I should much
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Speaker 1: appreciate any information about your intentions touching Welkin Castle my
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Speaker 1: own estate, as it would enable me to make my
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Speaker 1: own arrangements. Yours very truly Welcin of Welkin. Who is Welkin,
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Speaker 1: asked the puzzled politician. He writes, as if he knew me,
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Speaker 1: But I can't recall him at the moment. And where
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Speaker 1: is Welkin Castle? We must look at the maps again.
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Speaker 1: But though they looked at the maps for hours and
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Speaker 1: searched Burke, Debrett, Who's Who, the Atlas, and every other
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Speaker 1: work of reference, they could come upon no trace of
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Speaker 1: that firm but polite country Gentleman. Lord Eden was a
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Speaker 1: little worried because he knew that curiously important people could
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Speaker 1: exist in a corner of this country and suddenly emerge
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Speaker 1: from their corner to make trouble. He knew it was
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Speaker 1: very important that his own governing class should stand in
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Speaker 1: with him in this great public change, and private understanding,
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Speaker 1: and that no rich eccentric should be left out and offended.
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Speaker 1: But although he was worried to that extent, it is
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Speaker 1: probable that his worry would soon have faded from his
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Speaker 1: mind if it had not been for something that happened
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Speaker 1: some days later. Going out into the same garden to
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Speaker 1: the same table with the more agreeable purpose of taking tea.
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Speaker 1: There he was amazed to find another letter, though this
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Speaker 1: was like not on the table, but on the turf
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Speaker 1: just beside it. It was unstamped like the other, and
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Speaker 1: addressed in the same handwriting, but its tone was more stern.
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Speaker 1: Welcome Castle, October sixth nineteen. My Lord, as you seem
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Speaker 1: to have decided to continue your sweeping scheme of confiscation,
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Speaker 1: as in the case of Warbridge Castle, without the slightest
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Speaker 1: reference to the historic and even heroic claims and traditions
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Speaker 1: of Welkin Castle, I can only inform you that I
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Speaker 1: shall defend the fortress of my father's to the death. Moreover,
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Speaker 1: I have decided to make a protest of a more
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Speaker 1: public kind, and when you next hear from me, it
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Speaker 1: will be in the form of a general appeal to
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Speaker 1: the justice of the English people. Yours truly, Welkin of Welkin.
21:52
Speaker 1: The historic and even heroic traditions of Welkin Castle kept
21:57
Speaker 1: a dozen of the prime Minister's private secretaries busy for
22:00
Speaker 1: a week looking up encyclopedes and chronicles and books of history.
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Speaker 1: But the Prime Minister himself was more worried about another problem.
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Speaker 1: How did these mysterious letters get into the house, or
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Speaker 1: rather into the garden. None of them came by post,
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Speaker 1: and none of the servants knew anything whatever about them. Moreover,
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Speaker 1: the Prime Minister, in an unobtrusive way, was being very
22:25
Speaker 1: carefully guarded. Prime ministers always are, but he had been
22:29
Speaker 1: especially protected ever since the vegetarians a few years before
22:33
Speaker 1: had gone about killing everybody who believed in killing animals.
22:37
Speaker 1: There were always plain closed policemen at every entrance of
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Speaker 1: his house and garden, and from their testimony it would
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Speaker 1: appear certain that the letter could not have got into
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Speaker 1: the garden but for the trifling fact that it was
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Speaker 1: lying there on the garden table. Lord Eden cogitated in
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Speaker 1: a grim fashion for some time. Then he said, as
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Speaker 1: he rose from his chair, think I will have a
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Speaker 1: talk to our American friend, mister Oates, whether from a
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Speaker 1: sense of humor or a sense of justice. Lord Eden
23:11
Speaker 1: summoned Enoch Oates before the same special jury of three,
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Speaker 1: or summoned them before him, as the case may be,
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Speaker 1: For it was even more difficult than before to read
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Speaker 1: the exact secret of Eden's sympathies or intentions. He talked
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Speaker 1: about a variety of in different subjects, leading up to
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Speaker 1: that of the letters, which he tweated very lightly. Then
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Speaker 1: he said, quite suddenly, do you know anything about those letters?
23:38
Speaker 1: By the way, the American presented his poker face to
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Speaker 1: the company for some time without reply. Then he said,
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Speaker 1: and what makes you think I know anything about them? Because,
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Speaker 1: said Horace Hunter, breaking in with uncontrollable warmth, we know
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Speaker 1: your hand in glove with all these lunatics in the
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Speaker 1: League of the Long Bell, who ad a kicking up
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Speaker 1: all the shindy. Well, said Oaks, calmly, I'll never deny
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Speaker 1: I like some of their ways. I like live wires myself,
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Speaker 1: and after all, they're about the liveliest thing in this
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Speaker 1: old country. And I'll tell you more, I like people
24:18
Speaker 1: who take trouble, and believe me, they do take trouble.
24:23
Speaker 1: You say they're all nuts, but I reckon there really
24:27
Speaker 1: is method in their madness. They take trouble to keep
24:31
Speaker 1: those crazy vows of theirs. You spoke about the Fellows
24:34
Speaker 1: who carried off the astronomer in an airplane. Well, I
24:38
Speaker 1: know BELLEW Blair, the man who worked with Pierce on
24:41
Speaker 1: that stunt. And believe me, he's not a man to
24:44
Speaker 1: be sniffed at. He's one of the first experts and
24:47
Speaker 1: aeronautics in the country and if he's gone over to them,
24:51
Speaker 1: it means there's something in their notion for a scientific
24:54
Speaker 1: intellect to take hold of. It was Blair that worked
24:58
Speaker 1: that pig stunt for Hillary. P made a great gas
25:02
Speaker 1: bag shaped like a sow and gave all the little
25:05
Speaker 1: pigs parachutes. Well there you are, cried hunter of all
25:09
Speaker 1: the lunacy. And remember Commander Blair in the war, said
25:13
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister quietly. Bellows Blair, they called him. He
25:17
Speaker 1: did excellent expert work, some new scheme with dirigible balloons.
25:23
Speaker 1: But I was only going to ask mister Oates whether
25:26
Speaker 1: he happens to know where Welkin Castle is. Must be
25:30
Speaker 1: somewhere near here, suggested Norman Towers, as the letters seemed
25:34
Speaker 1: to have come by hand. Well, I don't know, said Enikots, doubtfully.
25:39
Speaker 1: I know a man living in Ely who had one
25:42
Speaker 1: of those letters delivered by hand, And I know another
25:46
Speaker 1: near Land's End who thought the letter must have come
25:48
Speaker 1: from somebody living near. As you say, they all seemed
25:52
Speaker 1: to come by hand. By what hand? Asked the Prime Minister,
25:57
Speaker 1: with a queer, grim expression. Mister Oats said, Lord Norman
26:02
Speaker 1: Towers firmly, where is Wilkin Castle? Why it's everywhere in
26:08
Speaker 1: a manner speaking, said mister Oates reflectively, it's anywhere anyhow. Gee,
26:15
Speaker 1: he broke off suddenly. Why, as a matter of fact,
26:18
Speaker 1: it's here, Ah, said the Prime Minister quietly. I thought
26:24
Speaker 1: we should see something if we watched here long enough.
26:27
Speaker 1: You don't think I kept you hanging about here, only
26:30
Speaker 1: to ask mister Oates questions that I knew the answer to.
26:34
Speaker 1: What do you mean? Thought we would see what? Where
26:38
Speaker 1: the unstamped lett is came from, replied Lord Eden. Luminous
26:43
Speaker 1: and enormous. They're heaved up above the garden trees, something
26:47
Speaker 1: that looked at first like a colored cloud. It was
26:51
Speaker 1: flushed with light such as lies on cloud's opposite the sunset,
26:56
Speaker 1: a light at once warm and wan and It shone
27:00
Speaker 1: like an opaque flame, but as it came closer it
27:04
Speaker 1: grew more and more incredible. It took on solid proportions
27:08
Speaker 1: and perspective, as if a cloud could brush and crush
27:11
Speaker 1: the dark treetops. It was something never seen before in
27:15
Speaker 1: the sky. It was a cubist cloud. Men gazing at
27:21
Speaker 1: such a sunset cloudland often imagine they see castles and
27:25
Speaker 1: cities of an almost uncanny completeness. But there would be
27:29
Speaker 1: a possible point of completeness at which they would cry aloud,
27:33
Speaker 1: or perhaps shriek aloud, as at a sign from heaven.
27:37
Speaker 1: And that completeness had come. The big, illuminous object that
27:42
Speaker 1: sailed above the garden was outlined in battlements and turrets,
27:46
Speaker 1: like a fairy castle, but with an architecture exactitude impossible
27:53
Speaker 1: in any cloudland. With the very look of it, a
27:57
Speaker 1: phrase and a proverb leaped into the mind. There my
28:02
Speaker 1: Lord cried out, suddenly lifting his nasal and drawling voice,
28:06
Speaker 1: and pointing, there's that dream you told me about. There's
28:10
Speaker 1: your castle in the air. As the shadow of the
28:14
Speaker 1: flying thing traveled over the sun lit lawn, they looked
28:18
Speaker 1: up and saw for the first time that the lower
28:21
Speaker 1: part of the edifice hung downwards like the car of
28:24
Speaker 1: a great balloon. They remembered the aeronautical tricks of Commander
28:29
Speaker 1: Blair and Captain Pierce, and the model of the monstrous pig.
28:33
Speaker 1: As it passed over the table, a white speck detached
28:37
Speaker 1: itself and dropped from the car. It was a letter.
28:42
Speaker 1: The next moment, the white speck was followed by a
28:45
Speaker 1: shower that was like a snowstorm. Countless letters, leaflets, and
28:49
Speaker 1: scraps of paper were littered all over the lawn. The
28:53
Speaker 1: guests seemed to stand staring wildly in a wilderness of
28:56
Speaker 1: waste paper. But the Keene had experienced eyes of Lord
29:00
Speaker 1: Eden recognized the material, which in political elections is somewhat
29:05
Speaker 1: satirically called literature. It took the twelve private secretaries some
29:12
Speaker 1: time to pick them all up and make the lawn
29:15
Speaker 1: neat and tidy again. On examination, they proved to be
29:19
Speaker 1: mainly of two kinds, one sort of electioneering pamphlet of
29:23
Speaker 1: the League of the Longbow, and the other a somewhat
29:27
Speaker 1: airy fantasy about private property in air. The most important
29:32
Speaker 1: of the documents, which Lord Eden studied more attentively, though
29:36
Speaker 1: with a grim smile, began with a sentence in large letters,
29:41
Speaker 1: an englishman's house is no longer his castle on the
29:45
Speaker 1: soil of England. If it is to be his castle,
29:49
Speaker 1: it must be a castle in the air. There seemed
29:52
Speaker 1: to be something unfamiliar and even fanciful in the idea.
29:57
Speaker 1: We reply that it is not so fantastic to own
30:01
Speaker 1: your own houses in the clouds as not to own
30:05
Speaker 1: your own houses on the earth. Then followed a passage
30:10
Speaker 1: of somewhat less solid political value, in which the acute
30:14
Speaker 1: reader might trace the influence of the poetical mister Pierce
30:19
Speaker 1: rather than the scientific mister Blair. It began, they have
30:25
Speaker 1: stolen the earth, we will divide the sky. But the
30:31
Speaker 1: writer followed this with a somewhat unconvincing claim to have
30:35
Speaker 1: trained rooks and swallows to hover in rows in the
30:38
Speaker 1: air to represent the hedges of the blue meadow of
30:42
Speaker 1: the new realm. And he was so obliging as to
30:45
Speaker 1: accompany the explanation with diagrams of space showing these exact
30:51
Speaker 1: ornithological boundaries in dotted lines. There were other equally scientific
30:56
Speaker 1: documents dealing with the treatment of clouds, the driving of
30:59
Speaker 1: birds to graze on insects, and so on the whole
31:03
Speaker 1: of this section concluded with the great social and economic
31:07
Speaker 1: slogan three acres and a crow. But when Lord Eden
31:13
Speaker 1: read on, his attention appeared graver than this particular sort
31:17
Speaker 1: of social reconstruction would seem to warrant. The writer of
31:21
Speaker 1: the pamphlet resumed, do not be surprised if there seems
31:26
Speaker 1: to be something topsy turvy in the above program that
31:31
Speaker 1: topsy turvidom marks the whole of our politics. It may
31:35
Speaker 1: seem strange that the air which has always been public
31:39
Speaker 1: should become private, when the land which has always been
31:43
Speaker 1: private has become public. We answer that this is exactly
31:47
Speaker 1: how things really stand today in the matter of all
31:51
Speaker 1: publicity and privacy. Private things are indeed being made public,
31:56
Speaker 1: but public things are being kept private. Thus we all
32:01
Speaker 1: had the pleasure of seeing in the papers a picture
32:04
Speaker 1: of Sir Horace hunter Obe smiling in an ingratiating manner
32:10
Speaker 1: at his favorite cockatoo. We know this detail of his existence,
32:15
Speaker 1: which might seem a merely domestic one. But the fact
32:19
Speaker 1: that he is shortly to be paid thirty thousand pounds
32:22
Speaker 1: of public money for continuing to live in his own
32:25
Speaker 1: house is concealed with the utmost delicacy. Similarly, we have
32:31
Speaker 1: seen whole pages of an illustrated paper filled with glimpses
32:35
Speaker 1: of Lord Norman Towers enjoying his honeymoon, which the papers
32:40
Speaker 1: in question are careful to describe as his romance. Whatever
32:44
Speaker 1: it may be. An antiquated and fastidious taste might possibly
32:49
Speaker 1: be disposed to regard it as his own affair. But
32:53
Speaker 1: the fact that the taxpayer's money, which is the taxpayer's affair,
32:58
Speaker 1: is to be given him in enormous quantities, first for
33:02
Speaker 1: going out of his castle and then for coming back
33:05
Speaker 1: into it, this little domestic detail is thought too trivial
33:08
Speaker 1: for the taxpayer to be told of it. Or Again,
33:12
Speaker 1: we are frequently informed that the hobby of mister rosenbaum
33:16
Speaker 1: Low is improving the breed of Pekinese, and god knows
33:21
Speaker 1: they need it, But it would seem the sort of
33:24
Speaker 1: hobby that anybody might have without telling everybody else about it.
33:29
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the fact that mister rosenbaum Low
33:32
Speaker 1: is being paid twice over for the same house and
33:36
Speaker 1: keeping the house as well, is concealed from the public,
33:40
Speaker 1: along with the equally interesting fact that he is allowed
33:43
Speaker 1: to do these things, chiefly because he lends money to
33:46
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister smiles stair more grimly,
33:52
Speaker 1: and glanced in a light yet lingering fashion at some
33:55
Speaker 1: of the accompanying leaflets. They seem to be in the
33:58
Speaker 1: form of ELECTIONEI leaflets, though not apparently connected with any
34:03
Speaker 1: particular election. Vote for Crane, he said he would eat
34:07
Speaker 1: his hat and did it. Lord Normant Tower said that
34:11
Speaker 1: he would explain how people came to swallow his cornet,
34:14
Speaker 1: but he hasn't done it yet. Vote for Pierce, he said,
34:19
Speaker 1: pigs would fly, and they did. Rosenbaum Low said a
34:23
Speaker 1: service of international aerial express trains would fly, and they didn't.
34:28
Speaker 1: It was your money he made to fly. Vote for
34:31
Speaker 1: the League of the Longbow. They are the only men
34:35
Speaker 1: who don't tell lies. The Prime Minister stood gazing after
34:40
Speaker 1: the vanishing cloud castle as it faded into the clouds,
34:45
Speaker 1: with a curious expression in his eyes, whether it were
34:48
Speaker 1: better or worse for his soul. There was something in
34:51
Speaker 1: him that understood much that the muddled materialists around him
34:56
Speaker 1: could never understand. Quite poetic, isn't it, he said dryly?
35:02
Speaker 1: Wasn't it Victor Hugo, some French poet who said something
35:06
Speaker 1: about politics and the clouds. The people say, bah, the
35:10
Speaker 1: poet is in the clouds, so is the thunderbolt. Thunderbolts,
35:15
Speaker 1: said Norman Tower contemptuously. What can these fowls do but
35:20
Speaker 1: go about flinging fireworks? Quite so, replied Eden. But I'm
35:26
Speaker 1: afraid by this time they are flinging fireworks into a
35:30
Speaker 1: powder magazine. He continued to gaze into the sky with
35:34
Speaker 1: screwed up eyes, though the object had become invisible. If
35:39
Speaker 1: his eyes could really have followed the thing after which
35:42
Speaker 1: he gazed, he would have been surprised if his unfathomable
35:46
Speaker 1: skepticism was still capable of surprise. It passed over woods
35:51
Speaker 1: and meadows like a sunset cloud towards the sunset, or
35:54
Speaker 1: a little to the northwest of it, like the fairy
35:57
Speaker 1: castle that was west of the moon. It left behind
36:00
Speaker 1: the green orchards and the red towers of Hereford and
36:04
Speaker 1: passed into the bare places, whose towers are mightier than
36:07
Speaker 1: any made by man, where they buttressed the mighty wall
36:11
Speaker 1: of whales. Far away. In this wilderness of columned cliffs
36:16
Speaker 1: and clefts, it found a cleft or hollow, along the
36:19
Speaker 1: floor of which ran a dark line that might have
36:23
Speaker 1: been a black river running through a rocky valley, but
36:26
Speaker 1: it was in fact a crack opening below into another abyss.
36:32
Speaker 1: The strange flying ship followed the course of the winding
36:35
Speaker 1: fissure till it came to a place where the crack
36:37
Speaker 1: opened into a chasm, round like a cauldron, and accidental
36:42
Speaker 1: as the knot in some colossal tree trunk through which
36:45
Speaker 1: it sank, entering the twilight of the tremendous cavern beneath.
36:50
Speaker 1: The abyss below was lit here and there with artificial
36:53
Speaker 1: lights like fallen stars of the underworld, and bridged with
36:57
Speaker 1: wooden platforms and galleries, on which were wooden huts and
37:01
Speaker 1: huge packing cases and many things somewhat suggestive of a
37:05
Speaker 1: munition dump. On the rocky walls were spread out various
37:09
Speaker 1: balloon coverings, some of them of even more grotesque outline
37:14
Speaker 1: than the castle. Some were in the shapes of animals,
37:17
Speaker 1: and on that primeval background looked like the last fossils,
37:22
Speaker 1: or perhaps the first outlines of vast prehistoric creatures. Perhaps
37:27
Speaker 1: there was something suggestive in the fancy that in that
37:30
Speaker 1: underworld a new world was being created. The man who
37:35
Speaker 1: alighted from the flying castle recognized, almost as one recognizes
37:39
Speaker 1: a domestic pet, the outline of a highly primitive pig,
37:44
Speaker 1: stretching like a large archaic drawing across the wall. For
37:48
Speaker 1: the young man was called Hilary Pierce, and it had
37:52
Speaker 1: previous dealings with the flying Pig, though for that day
37:56
Speaker 1: he had been put in charge of the flying Castle.
38:00
Speaker 1: On the platform on which he alighted stood a table
38:03
Speaker 1: covered with papers, with almost more papers than Lord Eden's table.
38:08
Speaker 1: But these papers were covered almost entirely with figures and
38:12
Speaker 1: numbers and mathematical symbols. Two men were bending over the table,
38:17
Speaker 1: discussing and occasionally disputing. In the taller of the two,
38:22
Speaker 1: the scientific world might have recognized Professor Greene, whom it
38:26
Speaker 1: was seeking everywhere like the missing Link, to incarcerate him
38:31
Speaker 1: in the interests of science. In the shorter and sturdier figure,
38:36
Speaker 1: a very few people might have recognized Belle Blair, the
38:41
Speaker 1: organizing brain of the English Revolution. I haven't come to stay,
38:46
Speaker 1: explained Pierce, hastily, and going on in a minute. Why
38:50
Speaker 1: shouldn't you stay, asked Blair, in the act of lighting
38:53
Speaker 1: a pipe. I don't want your little talk interrupted. Still less,
38:57
Speaker 1: far far less do I want it interrupted? I mean,
39:00
Speaker 1: while I'm here a little of your scientific conversation goes
39:03
Speaker 1: a long way with me. I know what you're like
39:05
Speaker 1: when you're really chatty, Professor Green says, in his satirical
39:08
Speaker 1: way ninety nine twenty point zero five, to which reply
39:13
Speaker 1: with quiet humor, seventy five points deer zero seven. This
39:16
Speaker 1: will be too good an opening for what he fell on,
39:19
Speaker 1: like the professor who will literally retaught nine a two
39:22
Speaker 1: point nine nothing the best taste, perhaps, but a great temptation.
39:26
Speaker 1: In the heat of debate, Commander Blair said, the professor
39:31
Speaker 1: is very kind to let me share his calculations. Lucky
39:35
Speaker 1: for me, said Blair, I'd have done ten times more
39:38
Speaker 1: with a mathematician like you. Well, said Pierre s casually,
39:43
Speaker 1: as you are so much in messer mathematics, I'll leave you.
39:46
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I had a message for
39:47
Speaker 1: Professor Green about miss Dale at the house where he
39:51
Speaker 1: was lodging. But we mustn't interrupt scientific studies for a
39:54
Speaker 1: little thing like that. Green's head came up with the
39:57
Speaker 1: papers with great abruptness. Message, hequed you, what message is
40:01
Speaker 1: it really for me? Eight two eight two point zer
40:04
Speaker 1: zero three replied Pierce coldly. Don't be offended. Said Blair.
40:09
Speaker 1: Give the professor's message and then go if you like.
40:13
Speaker 1: It's only that she came over to see my wife
40:15
Speaker 1: to find out where you had gone, said Piers. I
40:18
Speaker 1: told you so far as as possible to tell anybody,
40:21
Speaker 1: That's all, he added, but rather with the air of
40:23
Speaker 1: one's saying it ought to be enough. Apparently it was
40:28
Speaker 1: for Green, who was once more looking down upon the
40:31
Speaker 1: precious papers, crumpled one in his clenched hand, unconsciously, like
40:36
Speaker 1: a man suddenly controlling his feelings. Well, I'm off, said Pierce, cheerfully,
40:41
Speaker 1: got to go visit the other dumps. Stop a minute,
40:43
Speaker 1: said Blair, as the other turned away. Haven't you any
40:46
Speaker 1: sort of public news as well as private news? How
40:49
Speaker 1: are things going in the political world? Express in mathematical formula,
40:53
Speaker 1: replied Pierce over his shoulder. The politygnical news is m
40:56
Speaker 1: P square plus lsd over you equals l L let
41:00
Speaker 1: loose L upon earth, my boy, And he climbed again
41:05
Speaker 1: into his castle of the air. Oliver Green stood staring
41:09
Speaker 1: at the crumpled paper, and suddenly began to straighten it out.
41:14
Speaker 1: Mister Blair, he said, I am terribly ashamed of myself
41:18
Speaker 1: when I see you living here like a hermit in
41:20
Speaker 1: the mountains, and scrawling your calculations, so to speak, on
41:24
Speaker 1: the rocks of the wilderness, devoted to your great abstract idea,
41:28
Speaker 1: vowed to a great cause. It makes me feel very
41:31
Speaker 1: small to have entangled you and your friends in my
41:34
Speaker 1: small affairs. Of course, the affairs isn't a small one
41:38
Speaker 1: to me, but it must seem very small to you.
41:42
Speaker 1: I don't know very precisely, answered Blair, what was the
41:46
Speaker 1: nature of the affair? But it is emphatically your affair.
41:49
Speaker 1: For the rest I assure you were delighted to have you,
41:51
Speaker 1: apart from your valuable services as a calculating machine, Blue Blair.
41:57
Speaker 1: The last, and in the worldly sense, by far the
42:00
Speaker 1: ablest of the recruits of the long Bow, was a
42:03
Speaker 1: man in early Middle age. Squarely built but neat in figure,
42:07
Speaker 1: and light on his feet. Clad in a suit of leather,
42:11
Speaker 1: he mostly moved about so quickly that his figure made
42:15
Speaker 1: more impression than his face. But when he sat down
42:18
Speaker 1: smoking in one of his rare moments of leisure, as now,
42:22
Speaker 1: it could be remarked that his face was rather calm
42:25
Speaker 1: than vivacious, A short, square face with a short, resolute nose,
42:31
Speaker 1: but reflective eyes much lighter than his close black hair.
42:36
Speaker 1: It's quite homeric, he added, The two aumis fighting for
42:39
Speaker 1: the body of an astronomer. You are to be a
42:42
Speaker 1: sort of symbol. Anyhow, since they started that insanity of
42:45
Speaker 1: calling you insane, nobody has any business to bother you
42:49
Speaker 1: about the personal side of the matter. Green seemed to
42:52
Speaker 1: be ruminating, and the last phrase awoke him to a decision.
42:57
Speaker 1: He began to talk quite straightforwardly, though with a certain
43:01
Speaker 1: schoolboy awkwardness. He proceeded to tell his friend the whole
43:05
Speaker 1: of his uncouth love story, the overturning of his spiritual world,
43:09
Speaker 1: to the tune the old Cow died of, or rather
43:12
Speaker 1: danced to. And I've let you in for hiding me
43:16
Speaker 1: like a murderer, he concluded, for the sake of something
43:21
Speaker 1: that must seem to you not even like a cow
43:24
Speaker 1: jumping over the moon, but more like a calf falling
43:28
Speaker 1: over the milk stool. Perhaps people vowed to a great
43:31
Speaker 1: work like this ought to leave all that sort of
43:34
Speaker 1: thing behind them. Well, I don't see anything to be
43:38
Speaker 1: shamed of, said Blair. And in this case, I don't
43:41
Speaker 1: agree with what you said about leaving those things behind.
43:45
Speaker 1: I've some sorts of work, it's true, but not this.
43:48
Speaker 1: Shall I tell you a secret if you don't mind.
43:53
Speaker 1: The cow never does jump over the moon, said Blair gravely.
43:58
Speaker 1: It's one of the spots of the bulls of the herd.
44:01
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, said the professor.
44:05
Speaker 1: I mean that women can't be kept out of this
44:08
Speaker 1: war because it's a land war, answered Claire. If it
44:12
Speaker 1: were really a war in the air, you could have
44:15
Speaker 1: done it all by yourself. But in all wars of
44:18
Speaker 1: peasants defending their farms and homes, women have been very
44:22
Speaker 1: much on the spot. As they used to pour hot
44:25
Speaker 1: water out of the windows. Do the Irish evictions. Look here,
44:28
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a story. It's relevant because it has
44:31
Speaker 1: a mortal After all, it's my turn, so to speak.
44:35
Speaker 1: You've told me the true scory of the cow that
44:38
Speaker 1: jumped over the moon. It's time I told you the
44:41
Speaker 1: true story of the castle in the air. He smoked
44:44
Speaker 1: silently for a moment, and then said, you may have
44:48
Speaker 1: wondered how a very prosaic, practical Scotch engineer like myself,
44:52
Speaker 1: ever it came to make a thing like that pantomime
44:55
Speaker 1: palace over there, as childish as a child's colored balloon.
44:59
Speaker 1: The answer is the same, because in certain circumstances a
45:03
Speaker 1: man may be different from himself. At a certain period
45:07
Speaker 1: of the Old War preparations, I was doing some work
45:10
Speaker 1: for the government in a secluded part of the west
45:12
Speaker 1: coast of Ireland. There are very few people to many
45:15
Speaker 1: talked to, but one of them was the daughhthood of
45:18
Speaker 1: a bankrupt squire named Alone, and I talked to her
45:21
Speaker 1: a good deal. I was about as mechanical a mechanic
45:24
Speaker 1: as you could dig out anywhere, grimy, grumpy, tinkering about
45:28
Speaker 1: with dirty machinery. She was really like the princess you
45:32
Speaker 1: read about in the Celtic poems, with a red crown
45:35
Speaker 1: made of curling elf locks like little flames, and a
45:39
Speaker 1: pale elf and face that seemed somehow thin and luminous,
45:42
Speaker 1: like glass. And she could make you listen to silence
45:46
Speaker 1: like a sar. It wasn't a pose with her, it
45:50
Speaker 1: was a poem. There are people like that, but very
45:53
Speaker 1: few of them like her. I tried to keep my
45:56
Speaker 1: end up by telling her about the wonders of science
45:59
Speaker 1: and the great new architecture of the air, And then
46:02
Speaker 1: Sheila used to say, and what is the good of
46:05
Speaker 1: them to me? When you have built them? I can
46:09
Speaker 1: see a castle built herself without hands out of gigantic
46:12
Speaker 1: rocks of clear jewels in the sky every night, and
46:17
Speaker 1: she would point to where crimson or violet clouds hung
46:20
Speaker 1: in the green after glow over the Great Atlantic. You
46:24
Speaker 1: would probably say I was mad if you didn't happen
46:27
Speaker 1: to have been mad yourself. But I was wild with
46:30
Speaker 1: the ideas that there was something that she admired and
46:34
Speaker 1: that she thought science couldn't do. I was as morbid
46:37
Speaker 1: as a boy. I half thought she despised me, and
46:41
Speaker 1: I wanted half to prove her wrong and have to
46:44
Speaker 1: do whatever she thought right. I resolved my science should
46:48
Speaker 1: beat the clouds at their own game, and I labored
46:52
Speaker 1: till I actually made a sort of rainbow castle that
46:55
Speaker 1: would ride in the air. I think at the back
46:58
Speaker 1: of my mind there was some sort of crazy idea
47:01
Speaker 1: of carrying her luft into the clouds she lived among,
47:05
Speaker 1: as if she were literally an angel and ought to
47:08
Speaker 1: dwell on wings. It never quite came to that, as
47:12
Speaker 1: you will hear, but as my experiments progressed, my romance
47:16
Speaker 1: progressed too. You won't need any telling about that. I
47:21
Speaker 1: only want to tell you the end of the story
47:23
Speaker 1: because of them. More, we made arrangements to get merry,
47:27
Speaker 1: and I had to leave a good many of the
47:29
Speaker 1: arrangements to her while I completed my great work. Then
47:34
Speaker 1: at last it was ready, and I came to seek
47:36
Speaker 1: her like a pagan god, descending in a cloud to
47:40
Speaker 1: carry a nymph up to Olympus. And I found she
47:44
Speaker 1: had already taken a very solid little brick villa on
47:47
Speaker 1: the edge of a town, having gotten it remarkably cheap,
47:52
Speaker 1: and furnished it with most modern conveniences. And then I
47:56
Speaker 1: talked to her about castles in the air, and she
47:59
Speaker 1: laughed and said her castle had come down to the ground.
48:05
Speaker 1: That is the moral. A woman, especially an irishwoman, is
48:10
Speaker 1: always uncommonly practical when it comes to getting married. That
48:14
Speaker 1: is what I mean by saying that it is never
48:17
Speaker 1: the cow who jumps over the moon. It is the
48:20
Speaker 1: cow who stands firmly planted in the middle of the
48:23
Speaker 1: three acres, and who always counts in any struggle of
48:27
Speaker 1: the land. That is why there must be women in
48:31
Speaker 1: this story, especially like those in your story, and pierces
48:35
Speaker 1: women who come from the land. When the world needs
48:38
Speaker 1: a crusade for communal ideals, it is best waged by
48:42
Speaker 1: men without ties, like the Franciscans. But when it comes
48:47
Speaker 1: to a fight for private property, you can't keep women
48:50
Speaker 1: out of that. You can't have the family farm without
48:54
Speaker 1: the family. You must have concrete Christian marriage. Again, you
48:59
Speaker 1: can't have solid small property with all this vagabond polygamy
49:04
Speaker 1: had him. That isn't even a home. Green nodded and
49:09
Speaker 1: rose slowly to his feet with his hands in his pockets.
49:14
Speaker 1: When it comes to a fight, he said, When I
49:16
Speaker 1: look at these enormous underground preparations, it is not difficult
49:21
Speaker 1: to infer that you think it will come to a fight.
49:26
Speaker 1: I think it has come to a fight, answered Blair.
49:29
Speaker 1: Lord Eden has he cited that, And the others may
49:32
Speaker 1: not understand exactly what they are doing, but he does.
49:37
Speaker 1: And Blair knocked out his pipe and stood up to
49:40
Speaker 1: resume his work in that mountain laboratory at about the
49:43
Speaker 1: same time at which Lord Eden awoke from his smiling meditations, and,
49:49
Speaker 1: lighting a cigarette, went languidly indoors. He did not attempt
49:55
Speaker 1: to explain what was in his mind. To the men
49:57
Speaker 1: around him, he was the only man and there who
50:00
Speaker 1: understood that the england about him was not the england
50:05
Speaker 1: that had surrounded his youth and supported his leisure and luxury.
50:09
Speaker 1: That things were breaking up, first slowly, and then more
50:13
Speaker 1: and more swiftly, and that the things detaching themselves were
50:18
Speaker 1: both good and evil, And one of them was this bald,
50:23
Speaker 1: broad and menacing new fact a peasantry. The class of
50:28
Speaker 1: small farmers already existed, and might yet be found fighting
50:32
Speaker 1: for its farms, like the same class all over the world.
50:36
Speaker 1: It was no longer certain that the sweeping social adjustments
50:40
Speaker 1: settled in that garden could be applied to the whole
50:43
Speaker 1: english Land. But the story of how far his doubts
50:47
Speaker 1: were justified, and how far his whole project fared, is
50:53
Speaker 1: a part of the story of the ultimate ultimatum of
50:57
Speaker 1: the League of the long Bow, after which the exhausted
51:02
Speaker 1: and broken spirited reader may find rest at last end
51:10
Speaker 1: of chapter seven,