His Passage Through The Prison Of Knowledge
: THE WONDER AMONG BOOKSI
Challis led the way to the library; Lewes, petulant and mutinous, hung
in the rear.
The Wonder toddled forward, unabashed, to enter his new world. On the
threshold, however, he paused. His comprehensive stare took in a
sweeping picture of enclosing walls of books, and beyond was a vista of
further rooms, of more walls all lined from floor to ceiling with
records of human disco
The Wonder stayed and stared. Then he took two faltering steps into the
room and stopped again, and, finally, he looked up at Challis with doubt
and question; his gaze no longer quelling and authoritative, but
hesitating, compliant, perhaps a little child-like.
"'Ave you read all these?" he asked.
It was a curious picture. The tall figure of Challis, stooping, as
always, slightly forward; Challis, with his seaman's eyes and scholar's
head, his hands loosely clasped together behind his back, paying such
scrupulous attention to that grotesque representative of a higher
intellectuality, clothed in the dress of a villager, a patched
cricket-cap drawn down over his globular skull, his little arms hanging
loosely at his sides; who, nevertheless, even in this new, strange
aspect of unwonted humility bore on his face the promise of some
ultimate development which differentiated him from all other humanity,
as the face of humanity is differentiated from the face of its
prognathous ancestor.
The scene is set in a world of books, and in the background lingers the
athletic figure and fair head of Lewes, the young Cambridge
undergraduate, the disciple of science, hardly yet across the threshold
which divides him from the knowledge of his own ignorance.
"'Ave you read all these?" asked the Wonder.
"A greater part of them--in effect," replied Challis. "There is much
repetition, you understand, and much record of experiment which becomes,
in a sense, worthless when the conclusions are either finally accepted
or rejected."
The eyes of the Wonder shifted and their expression became abstracted;
he seemed to lose consciousness of the outer world; he wore the look
which you may see in the eyes of Jakob Schlesinger's portrait of the
mature Hegel, a look of profound introspection and analysis.
There was an interval of silence, and then the Wonder unknowingly gave
expression to a quotation from Hamlet. "Words," he whispered
reflectively, and then again "words."
II
Challis understood him. "You have not yet learned the meaning of words?"
he asked.
The brief period--the only one recorded--of amazement and submission was
over. It may be that he had doubted during those few minutes of time
whether he was well advised to enter into that world of books, whether
he would not by so doing stunt his own mental growth. It may be that the
decision of so momentous a question should have been postponed for a
year--two years; to a time when his mind should have had further
possibilities for unlettered expansion. However that may be, he decided
now and finally. He walked to the table and climbed up on a chair.
"Books about words," he commanded, and pointed at Challis and Lewes.
They brought him the latest production of the twentieth century in many
volumes, the work of a dozen eminent authorities on the etymology of the
English language, and they seated him on eight volumes of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica (India paper edition) in order that he might
reach the level of the table.
At first they tried to show him how his wonderful dictionary should be
used, but he pushed them on one side, neither then nor at any future
time would he consent to be taught--the process was too tedious for him,
his mind worked more fluently, rapidly, and comprehensively than the
mind of the most gifted teacher that could have been found for him.
So Challis and Lewes stood on one side and watched him, and he was no
more embarrassed by their presence than if they had been in another
world, as, possibly, they were.
He began with volume one, and he read the title page and the
introduction, the list of abbreviations, and all the preliminary matter
in due order.
Challis noted that when the Wonder began to read, he read no faster than
the average educated man, but that he acquired facility at a most
astounding rate, and that when he had been reading for a few days his
eye swept down the column, as it were at a single glance.
Challis and Lewes watched him for, perhaps, half an hour, and then,
seeing that their presence was of an entirely negligible value to the
Wonder, they left him and went into the farther room.
"Well?" asked Challis, "what do you make of him?"
"Is he reading or pretending to read?" parried Lewes. "Do you think it
possible that he could read so fast? Moreover, remember that he has
admitted that he knows few words of the English language, yet he does
not refer from volume to volume; he does not look up the meanings of the
many unknown words which must occur even in the introduction."
"I know. I had noticed that."
"Then you think he is humbugging--pretending to read?"
"No; that solution seems to me altogether unlikely. He could not, for
one thing, simulate that look of attention. Remember, Lewes, the child
is not yet five years old."
"What is your explanation, then?"
"I am wondering whether the child has not a memory beside which the
memory of a Macaulay would appear insignificant."
Lewes did not grasp Challis's intention. "Even so ..." he began.
"And," continued Challis, "I am wondering whether, if that is the case,
he is, in effect, prepared to learn the whole dictionary by heart, and,
so to speak, collate its contents later, in his mind."
"Oh! Sir!" Lewes smiled. The supposition was too outrageous to be taken
seriously. "Surely, you can't mean that." There was something in Lewes's
tone which carried a hint of contempt for so far-fetched a hypothesis.
Challis was pacing up and down the library, his hands clasped behind
him. "Yes, I mean it," he said, without looking up. "I put it forward as
a serious theory, worthy of full consideration."
Lewes sneered. "Oh, surely not, sir," he said.
Challis stopped and faced him. "Why not, Lewes; why not?" he asked, with
a kindly smile. "Think of the gap which separates your intellectual
powers from those of a Polynesian savage. Why, after all, should it be
impossible that this child's powers should equally transcend our own? A
freak, if you will, an abnormality, a curious effect of nature's, like
the giant puff-ball--but still----"
"Oh! yes, sir, I grant you the thing is not impossible from a
theoretical point of view," argued Lewes, "but I think you are
theorising on altogether insufficient evidence. I am willing to admit
that such a freak is theoretically possible, but I have not yet found
the indications of such a power in the child."
Challis resumed his pacing. "Quite, quite," he assented; "your method
is perfectly correct--perfectly correct. We must wait."
At twelve o'clock Challis brought a glass of milk and some biscuits, and
set them beside the Wonder--he was apparently making excellent progress
with the letter "A."
"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Challis.
The Wonder took not the least notice of the question, but he stretched
out a little hand and took a biscuit and ate it, without looking up from
his reading.
"I wish he'd answer questions," Challis remarked to Lewes, later.
"I should prescribe a sound shaking," returned Lewes.
Challis smiled. "Well, see here, Lewes," he said, "I'll take the
responsibility; you go and experiment; go and shake him."
Lewes looked through the folding doors at the picture of the Wonder,
intent on his study of the great dictionary. "Since you've franked me,"
he said, "I'll do it--but not now. I'll wait till he gives me some
occasion."
"Good," replied Challis, "my offer holds ... and, by the way, I have no
doubt that an occasion will present itself. Doesn't it strike you as
likely, Lewes, that we shall see a good deal of the child here?"
They stood for some minutes, watching the picture of that intent
student, framed in the written thoughts of his predecessors.
III
The Wonder ignored an invitation to lunch; he ignored, also, the tray
that was sent in to him. He read on steadily till a quarter to six, by
which time he was at the end of "B," and then he climbed down from his
Encyclopaedia, and made for the door. Challis, working in the farther
room, saw him and came out to open the door.
"Are you going now?" he asked.
The child nodded.
"I will order the cart for you, if you will wait ten minutes," said
Challis.
The child shook his head. "It's very necessary to have air," he said.
Something in the tone and pronunciation struck Challis, and awoke a long
dormant memory. The sentence spoken, suddenly conjured up a vision of
the Stotts' cottage at Stoke, of the Stotts at tea, of a cradle in the
shadow, and of himself, sitting in an uncomfortable armchair and
swinging his stick between his knees. When the child had gone--walking
deliberately, and evidently regarding the mile-and-a-half walk through
the twilight wood and over the deserted Common as a trivial incident in
the day's business--Challis set himself to analyse that curious
association.
As he strolled back across the hall to the library, he tried to
reconstruct the scene of the cottage at Stoke, and to recall the outline
of the conversation he had had with the Stotts.
"Lewes!" he said, when he reached the room in which his secretary was
working. "Lewes, this is curious," and he described the associations
called up by the child's speech. "The curious thing is," he continued,
"that I had gone to advise Mrs. Stott to take a cottage at Pym, because
the Stoke villagers were hostile, in some way, and she did not care to
take the child out in the street. It is more than probable that I used
just those words, 'It is very necessary to have air,' very probable.
Now, what about my memory theory? The child was only six months old at
that time."
Lewes appeared unconvinced. "There is nothing very unusual in the
sentence," he said.
"Forgive me," replied Challis, "I don't agree with you. It is not
phrased as a villager would phrase it, and, as I tell you, it was not
spoken with the local accent."
"You may have spoken the sentence to-day," suggested Lewes.
"I may, of course, though I don't remember saying anything of the sort,
but that would not account for the curiously vivid association which was
conjured up."
Lewes pursed his lips. "No, no, no," he said. "But that is hardly ground
for argument, is it?"
"I suppose not," returned Challis thoughtfully; "but when you take up
psychology, Lewes, I should much like you to specialise on a careful
inquiry into association in connection with memory. I feel certain that
if one can reproduce, as nearly as may be, any complex sensation one has
experienced, no matter how long ago, one will stimulate what I may call
an abnormal memory of all the associations connected with that
experience. Just now I saw the interior of that room in the Stotts'
cottage so clearly that I had an image of a dreadful oleograph of
Disraeli hanging on the wall. But, now, I cannot for the life of me
remember whether there was such an oleograph or not. I do not remember
noticing it at the time."
"Yes, that's very interesting," replied Lewes. "There is certainly a
wide field for research in that direction."
"You might throw much light on our mental processes," replied Challis.
(It was as the outcome of this conversation that Gregory Lewes did, two
years afterwards, take up this line of study. The only result up to the
present time is his little brochure Reflexive Associations, which has
added little to our knowledge of the subject.)
IV
Challis's anticipation that he and Lewes would be greatly favoured by
the Wonder's company was fully realised.
The child put in an appearance at half-past nine the next morning, just
as the governess cart was starting out to fetch him. When he was
admitted he went straight to the library, climbed on to the chair, upon
which the volumes of the Encyclopaedia still remained, and continued his
reading where he had left off on the previous evening.
He read steadily throughout the day without giving utterance to speech
of any kind.
Challis and Lewes went out in the afternoon, and left the child deep in
study. They came in at six o'clock, and went to the library. The Wonder,
however, was not there.
Challis rang the bell.
"Has little Stott gone?" he asked when Heathcote came.
"I 'aven't seen 'im, sir," said Heathcote.
"Just find out if any one opened the door for him, will you?" said
Challis. "He couldn't possibly have opened that door for himself."
"No one 'asn't let Master Stott hout, sir," Heathcote reported on his
return.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, sir. I've made full hinquiries," said Heathcote with
dignity.
"Well, we'd better find him," said Challis.
"The window is open," suggested Lewes.
"He would hardly ..." began Challis, walking over to the low sill of the
open window, but he broke off in his sentence and continued, "By Jove,
he did, though; look here!"
It was, indeed, quite obvious that the Wonder had made his exit by the
window; the tiny prints of his feet were clearly marked in the mould of
the flower-bed; he had, moreover, disregarded all results of early
spring floriculture.
"See how he has smashed those daffodils," said Lewes. "What an
infernally cheeky little brute he is!"
"What interests me is the logic of the child," returned Challis. "I
would venture to guess that he wasted no time in trying to attract
attention. The door was closed, so he just got out of the window. I
rather admire the spirit; there is something Napoleonic about him. Don't
you think so?"
Lewes shrugged his shoulders. Heathcote's expression was quite
non-committal.
"You'd better send Jessop up to Pym, Heathcote," said Challis. "Let him
find out whether the child is safe at home."
Jessop reported an hour afterwards that Master Stott had arrived home
quite safely, and Mrs. Stott was much obliged.
V
Altogether the Wonder spent five days, or about forty hours, on his
study of the dictionary, and in the evening of his last day's work he
left again by the open window. Challis, however, had been keeping him
under fairly close observation, and knew that the preliminary task was
finished.
"What can I give that child to read to-day?" he asked at breakfast next
morning.
"I should reverse the arrangement; let him sit on the Dictionary and
read the Encyclopaedia." Lewes always approached the subject of the
Wonder with a certain supercilious contempt.
"You are not convinced yet that he isn't humbugging?"
"No! Frankly, I'm not."
"Well, well, we must wait for more evidence, before we argue about it,"
said Challis, but they sat on over the breakfast-table, waiting for the
child to put in an appearance, and their conversation hovered over the
topic of his intelligence.
"Half-past ten?" Challis ejaculated at last, with surprise. "We are
getting into slack habits, Lewes." He rose and rang the bell.
"Apparently the Stott infant has had enough of it," suggested Lewes.
"Perhaps he has exhausted the interest of dictionary illustrations."
"We shall see," replied Challis, and then to a deferentially appearing
Heathcote he said: "Has Master Stott come this morning?"
"No, sir. Leastways, no one 'asn't let 'im in, sir."
"It may be that he is mentally collating the results of the past two
days' reading," said Challis, as he and Lewes made their way to the
library.
"Oh!" was all Lewes's reply, but it conveyed much of impatient contempt
for his employer's attitude.
Challis only smiled.
When they entered the library they found the Wonder hard at work, and he
had, of his own initiative, adopted the plan ironically suggested by
Lewes, for he had succeeded in transferring the Dictionary volumes to
the chair, and he was deep in volume one, of the eleventh edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The library was never cleared up by any one except Challis or his
deputy, but an early housemaid had been sent to dust, and she had left
the casement of one of the lower lights of the window open. The means
of the Wonder's entrance was thus clearly in evidence.
"It's Napoleonic," murmured Challis.
"It's most infernal cheek," returned Lewes in a loud voice, "I should
not be at all surprised if that promised shaking were not administered
to-day."
The Wonder took no notice. Challis says that on that morning his eyes
were travelling down the page at about the rate at which one could count
the lines.
"He isn't reading," said Lewes. "No one could read as fast as that, and
most certainly not a child of four and a half."
"If he would only answer questions ..." hesitated Challis.
"Oh! of course he won't do that," said Lewes. "He's clever enough not to
give himself away."
The two men went over to the table and looked down over the child's
shoulder. He was in the middle of the article on "Aberration"--a
technical treatise on optical physics.
Lewes made a gesture. "Now do you believe he's humbugging?" he asked
confidently, and made no effort to modulate his voice.
Challis drew his eyebrows together. "My boy," he said, and laid his hand
lightly on Victor Stott's shoulder, "can you understand what you are
reading there?"
But no answer was vouchsafed. Challis sighed. "Come along, Lewes," he
said; "we must waste no more time."
Lewes wore a look of smug triumph as they went to the farther room, but
he was clever enough to refrain from expressing his triumph in speech.
VI
Challis gave directions that the window which the Wonder had found to be
his most convenient method of entry and exit should be kept open, except
at night; and a stool was placed under the sill inside the room, and a
low bench was fixed outside to facilitate the child's goings and
comings. Also, a little path was made across the flower-bed.
The Wonder gave no trouble. He arrived at nine o'clock every morning,
Sunday included, and left at a quarter to six in the evening. On wet
days he was provided with a waterproof which had evidently been made by
his mother out of a larger garment. This he took off when he entered the
room and left on the stool under the window.
He was given a glass of milk and a plate of bread-and-butter at twelve
o'clock; and except for this he demanded and received no attention.
For three weeks he devoted himself exclusively to the study of the
Encyclopaedia.
Lewes was puzzled.
Challis spoke little of the child during these three weeks, but he often
stood at the entrance to the farther rooms and watched the Wonder's eyes
travelling so rapidly yet so intently down the page. That sight had a
curious fascination for him; he returned to his own work by an effort,
and an hour afterwards he would be back again at the door of the larger
room. Sometimes Lewes would hear him mutter: "If he would only answer a
few questions...." There was always one hope in Challis's mind. He hoped
that some sort of climax might be reached when the Encyclopaedia was
finished. The child must, at least, ask then for another book. Even if
he chose one for himself, his choice might furnish some sort of a test.
So Challis waited and said little; and Lewes was puzzled, because he was
beginning to doubt whether it were possible that the child could sustain
a pose so long. That, in itself, would be evidence of extraordinary
abnormality. Lewes fumbled in his mind for another hypothesis.
This reading craze may be symptomatic of some form of idiocy, he
thought; "and I don't believe he does read," was his illogical
deduction.
Mrs. Stott usually came to meet her son, and sometimes she would come
early in the afternoon and stand at the window watching him at his work;
but neither Challis nor Lewes ever saw the Wonder display by any sign
that he was aware of his mother's presence.
During those three weeks the Wonder held himself completely detached
from any intercourse with the world of men. At the end of that period he
once more manifested his awareness of the human factor in existence.
Challis, if he spoke little to Lewes of the Wonder during this time,
maintained a strict observation of the child's doings.
The Wonder began his last volume of the Encyclopaedia one Wednesday
afternoon soon after lunch, and on Thursday morning, Challis was
continually in and out of the room watching the child's progress, and
noting his nearness to the end of the colossal task he had undertaken.
At a quarter to twelve he took up his old position in the doorway, and
with his hands clasped behind his back he watched the reading of the
last forty pages.
There was no slackening and no quickening in the Wonder's rate of
progress. He read the articles under "Z" with the same attention he had
given to the remainder of the work, and then, arrived at the last page,
he closed the volume and took up the Index.
Challis suffered a qualm; not so much on account of the possible
postponement of the crisis he was awaiting, as because he saw that the
reading of the Index could only be taken as a sign that the whole study
had been unintelligent. No one could conceivably have any purpose in
reading through an index.
And at this moment Lewes joined him in the doorway.
"What volume has he got to now?" asked Lewes.
"The Index," returned Challis.
Lewes was no less quick in drawing his inference than Challis had been.
"Well, that settles it, I should think," was Lewes's comment.
"Wait, wait," returned Challis.
The Wonder turned a dozen pages at once, glanced at the new opening,
made a further brief examination of two or three headings near the end
of the volume, closed the book, and looked up.
"Have you finished?" asked Challis.
The Wonder shook his head. "All this," he said--he indicated with a
small and dirty hand the pile of volumes that were massed round
him--"all this ..." he repeated, hesitated for a word, and again shook
his head with that solemn, deliberate impressiveness which marked all
his actions.
Challis came towards the child, leaned over the table for a moment, and
then sat down opposite to him. Between the two protagonists hovered
Lewes, sceptical, inclined towards aggression.
"I am most interested," said Challis. "Will you try to tell me, my boy,
what you think of--all this?"
"So elementary ... inchoate ... a disjunctive ... patchwork," replied
the Wonder. His abstracted eyes were blind to the objective world of our
reality; he seemed to be profoundly analysing the very elements of
thought.
VII
Then that almost voiceless child found words. Heathcote's announcement
of lunch was waved aside, the long afternoon waned, and still that thin
trickle of sound flowed on.
The Wonder spoke in odd, pedantic phrases; he used the technicalities of
every science; he constructed his sentences in unusual ways, and often
he paused for a word and gave up the search, admitting that his meaning
could not be expressed through the medium of any language known to him.
Occasionally Challis would interrupt him fiercely, would even rise from
his chair and pace the room, arguing, stating a point of view, combating
some suggestion that underlay the trend of that pitiless wisdom which in
the end bore him down with its unanswerable insistence.
During those long hours much was stated by that small, thin voice which
was utterly beyond the comprehension of the two listeners; indeed, it is
doubtful whether even Challis understood a tithe of the theory that was
actually expressed in words.
As for Lewes, though he was at the time non-plussed, quelled, he was in
the outcome impressed rather by the marvellous powers of memory
exhibited than by the far finer powers shown in the superhuman logic of
the synthesis.
One sees that Lewes entered upon the interview with a mind predisposed
to criticise, to destroy. There can be no doubt that as he listened his
uninformed mind was endeavouring to analyse, to weigh, and to oppose;
and this antagonism and his own thoughts continually interposed between
him and the thought of the speaker. Lewes's account of what was spoken
on that afternoon is utterly worthless.
Challis's failure to comprehend was not, at the outset, due to his
antagonistic attitude. He began with an earnest wish to understand: he
failed only because the thing spoken was beyond the scope of his
intellectual powers. But he did, nevertheless, understand the trend of
that analysis of progress; he did in some half-realised way apprehend
the gist of that terrible deduction of a final adjustment.
He must have apprehended, in part, for he fiercely combated the
argument, only to quaver, at last, into a silence which permitted again
that trickle of hesitating, pedantic speech, which was yet so
overwhelming, so conclusive.
As the afternoon wore on, however, Challis's attitude must have changed;
he must have assumed an armour of mental resistance not unlike the
resistance of Lewes. Challis perceived, however dimly, that life would
hold no further pleasure for him if he accepted that theory of origin,
evolution, and final adjustment; he found in this cosmogony no place for
his own idealism; and he feared to be convinced even by that fraction of
the whole argument which he could understand.
We see that Challis, with all his apparent devotion to science, was
never more than a dilettante. He had another stake in the world which,
at the last analysis, he valued more highly than the acquisition of
knowledge. Those means of ease, of comfort, of liberty, of opportunity
to choose his work among various interests, were the ruling influence of
his life. With it all Challis was an idealist, and unpractical. His
genial charity, his refinement of mind, his unthinking generosity,
indicate the bias of a character which inclined always towards a
picturesque optimism. It is not difficult to understand that he dared
not allow himself to be convinced by Victor Stott's appalling
synthesis.
At last, when the twilight was deepening into night, the voice ceased,
the child's story had been told, and it had not been understood. The
Wonder never again spoke of his theory of life. He realised from that
time that no one could comprehend him.
As he rose to go, he asked one question that, simple as was its
expression, had a deep and wonderful significance.
"Is there none of my kind?" he said. "Is this," and he laid a hand on
the pile of books before him, "is this all?"
"There is none of your kind," replied Challis; and the little figure
born into a world that could not understand him, that was not ready to
receive him, walked to the window and climbed out into the darkness.
* * * * *
(Henry Challis is the only man who could ever have given any account of
that extraordinary analysis of life, and he made no effort to recall the
fundamental basis of the argument, and so allowed his memory of the
essential part to fade. Moreover, he had a marked disinclination to
speak of that afternoon or of anything that was said by Victor Stott
during those six momentous hours of expression. It is evident that
Challis's attitude to Victor Stott was not unlike the attitude of
Captain Wallis to Victor Stott's father on the occasion of
Hampdenshire's historic match with Surrey. "This man will have to be
barred," Wallis said. "It means the end of cricket." Challis, in effect,
thought that if Victor Stott were encouraged, it would mean the end of
research, philosophy, all the mystery, idealism, and joy of life. Once,
and once only, did Challis give me any idea of what he had learned
during that afternoon's colloquy, and the substance of what Challis then
told me will be found at the end of this volume.)
More
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Joe Prantera called softly, "Al." The pleasurable, comfortable, warm feeling began spreading over him, the way it always did. The older man stopped and squinted, but not suspiciously, even now. The evening was dark, it was unlikely that the ... Hail To The Chief
The tumult in Convention Hall was a hurricane of sound that lashed at a sea of human beings that surged and eddied around the broad floor. Men and women, delegates and spectators, aged party wheelhorses and youngsters who would vote for the firs... Han Electrono-ray Science
At this period the Hans of Nu-Yok had only one airship equipped with their new armored repeller ray, their latest defense against our tactics of shooting rockets into the repeller rays and letting the latter hurl them up against the ships. They ha... Hanging By A Thread
ALTHOUGH in this way the Ford family led a happy and contented life, yet it was easy to see that Harry, naturally of a grave disposition, became more and more quiet and reserved. Even Jack Ryan, with all his good humor and usually infectious merri... Hard Guy
He was standing at the side of the glassite super-highway, his arm half-raised, thumb pointed in the same direction as that of the approaching rocket car. Ordinarily Frederick Marden would have passed a hitch-hiker without stopping, but there was ... Harry Collins 1997
The telescreen lit up promptly at eight a.m. Smiling Brad came on with his usual greeting. "Good morning--it's a beautiful day in Chicagee!" Harry Collins rolled over and twitched off the receiver. "This I doubt," he muttered. He sat up and re... Harry Collins 1998
It took them ten seconds to save Harry from falling, but it took him over ten weeks to regain his balance. In fact, well over two months had passed before he could fully realize just what had happened, or where he was now. They must have noticed... Harry Collins 2000
Harry didn't ask any questions. He just kept his mouth shut and waited. Maybe Dr. Manschoff suspected and maybe he didn't. Anyway, there was no trouble. Harry figured there wouldn't be, as long as he stayed in line and went through the proper moti... Harry Collins 2012
Harry crouched behind the boulders, propping the rifle up between the rocks, and adjusted the telescopic sights. The distant doorway sprang into sharp focus. Grunting with satisfaction, he settled down to his vigil. The rifle-barrel had been dulle... Harry Collins 2029
The guards at Stark Falls were under strict orders not to talk. Each prisoner here was exercised alone in a courtyard runway, and meals were served in the cells. The cells were comfortable enough, and while there were no telescreens, books were av... Harry Collins 2032
Harry's son's house was on the outskirts of Washington, near what had once been called Gettysburg. Harry was surprised to find that it was a house, and a rather large one, despite the fact that almost all the furniture had been scaled down proport... Hated Mars
"I want you to put me in prison!" the big, hairy man said in a trembling voice. He was addressing his request to a thin woman sitting behind a desk that seemed much too big for her. The plaque on the desk said: ... Haunte
While Maskull sat, Corpang walked restlessly to and fro, swinging his arms. He had lost his staff. His face was inflamed with suppressed impatience, which accentuated its natural coarseness. At last he stopped short in front of Maskull and looked do... Heavenly Bodies
The following day, while in their observatory, they saw something not many miles ahead. They watched it for hours, and in fact all day, but notwithstanding their tremendous speed they came but little nearer. "They say a stern chase is a long ... Heist Job On Thizar
In the future, we may discover new planets; our ships may rocket to new worlds; robots may be smarter than people. But we'll still have slick characters willing and able to turn a fast buck--even though they have to be smarter than Einstein to do i... Hellhounds Of The Cosmos
Weird are the conditions of the interdimensional struggle faced by Dr. White's ninety-nine men. The paper had gone to press, graphically describing the latest of the many horrible events which had been enacted upon the Earth in the last s... Hex
She was a young, enthusiastic worker for the Welfare Department. She liked helping people ... only she really-but-good helped them! The office wasn't very bright or sunny, but that didn't matter. In the first place, if Gloria rea... His Debt To Henry Challis
I Challis was out of England for more than three years after that one brief intrusion of his into the affairs of Mr. and Mrs. Stott. During the interval he was engaged upon those investigations, the results of which are embodied in his monograp... His Departure From Stoke-underhill
I The village of Stoke was no whit intimidated by the news that Mrs. Reade sowed abroad. The women exclaimed and chattered, the men gaped and shook their heads, the children hung about the ruinous gate that shut them out from the twenty-yard st... His Examination
I Challis's first visit was paid to Sir Deane Elmer,[4] that man of many activities, whose name inevitably suggests his favourite phrase of "Organised Progress"--with all its variants. This is hardly the place in which to criticise a man of s... His Father's Desertion
I The strongest of all habits is that of acquiescence. It is this habit of submission that explains the admired patience and long-suffering of the abjectly poor. The lower the individual falls, the more unconquerable becomes the inertia of mind... His First Visit To Challis Court
I "Shall you be able to help me in collating your notes of the Tikopia observations to-day, sir?" Lewes asked next morning. He rose from the breakfast-table and lit a cigarette. There was no ceremony between Challis and his secretary. "You f... His Interview With Herr Grossmann
I Crashaw must have suffered greatly just at that time; and the anticipation of his defeat by the Committee was made still more bitter by the wonderful visit of Herr Grossmann. It is true that that visit feebly helped Crashaw's cause at the mom... His Passage Through The Prison Of Knowledge
I Challis led the way to the library; Lewes, petulant and mutinous, hung in the rear. The Wonder toddled forward, unabashed, to enter his new world. On the threshold, however, he paused. His comprehensive stare took in a sweeping picture of ... His Pastors And Masters
I For many months after that long afternoon in the library, Challis was affected with a fever of restlessness, and his work on the book stood still. He was in Rome during May, and in June he was seized by a sudden whim and went to China by the ... History Of The Cannon
The resolutions passed at the last meeting produced a great effect out of doors. Timid people took fright at the idea of a shot weighing 20,000 pounds being launched into space; they asked what cannon could ever transmit a sufficient velocity to ... Ho! For The South Pole!
Silver Cloud, meantime, had been returned to the place of her birth, the great iron works upon the Potomac river. Another shapely three hundred feet mast had been manufactured and erected. One morning about the middle of September, the globe arose... Homeward Bound
As Heideck had foreseen, the announcement of the victory was followed by disastrous tidings for the English. Up to noon on the following day Bombay had waited in vain for confirmation of the despatch and fuller particulars. Very late in the evenin... Hooja's Cutthroats Appear
I had built a little shelter of rocks and brush where I might crawl in and sleep out of the perpetual light and heat of the noonday sun. When I was tired or hungry I retired to my humble cot. My masters never interposed the slightest objection. ... Hospital
St. Thomas, Thursday, 20 June 2571 Odeon was still perplexed by the previous afternoon's odd meeting when he got to Joanie's room the morning after her surgery. The door was open, but he tapped on it and called her name anyway. "Mike!" ... Hospitality Under The Arctic Circle
It ought to have been night-time, but under the 65th parallel there was nothing surprising in the nocturnal polar light. In Iceland during the months of June and July the sun does not set. But the temperature was much lower. I was cold and more hu... How A Frenchman Manages An Affair
While the contract of this duel was being discussed by the president and the captain-- this dreadful, savage duel, in which each adversary became a man-hunter-- Michel Ardan was resting from the fatigues of his triumph. Resting is hardly an appr... How Francis Bacon Cheated The Bailiffs
It was at about this time that Copernicus Droop finally awakened. He lay perfectly still for a minute or two, wondering where he was and what had happened. Then he began to mutter to himself. "Machinery's stopped, so we're on dry land," he said.... How I Fell In With The Curate
After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlook... How I Reached Home
For my own part, I remember nothing of my flight except the stress of blundering against trees and stumbling through the heather. All about me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians; that pitiless sword of heat seemed whirling to and... How I Went To Pym To Write A Book
I The circumstance that had intrigued me for so long was determined with an abruptness only less remarkable than the surprise of the onset. Two deaths within six months brought to me, the first, a competence, the second, release from gall and b... How London Took The News
The awaking of England on the morning of the twenty-sixth of November was like the awaking of a man from a nightmare. Everyone who slept had gone to sleep with one word humming in his brain--war--and war at home, that was the terrible thought whic... How Rebecca Returned To Newington
Within the palace all was confusion and dismay. Only a very few knew the cause of this riot which had burst so suddenly upon the wonted peace of the place, and those few never in all their lives gave utterance to what they had learned. Within t... How Shakespeare Wrote His Plays
As Francis Bacon returned to London from the Peacock, Phoebe had stood at the foot of the steps leading into the courtyard and watched him depart. She little foresaw the strange adventure into which he was destined to lead her sister. Indeed, her ... How Sir Guy Kept His Tryst
For one hour before sunset of that same day Phoebe had been patiently waiting alone behind the east wall of the inn garden. As she had expected, her step-mother had accompanied her father to London that afternoon, and she found herself free for th... How The Beast Folk Taste Blood
MY inexperience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread of my story. After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he took me across the island to see the fumarole and the source of the hot spring into whose scalding waters I had blunde... How The Fat Knight Did Homage
On Rebecca's arrival with the royal attendants at Greenwich Palace, the Queen had ordered that she be given a splendid suite of apartments for her own use, and that she be constantly attended by a number of young gentlewomen assigned to her establ... How The French Landed At Portsmouth
All the ships able to take their place in the fighting-line were left outside. The French prisoners were disembarked and their places taken by drafts from the British warships, who at once set about making such repairs as were possible at sea. Adm... How The Queen Read Her Newspaper
For Rebecca, left alone in the goldsmiths' city house, the past night and day had been a period of perplexity. She had been saved from any serious anxiety by the arrival of a messenger soon after Phoebe's departure, who had brought her word that h... How The Unexpected Happened
When I came to myself I was lying with my head pillowed on Garnesk's arm. My coat and collar were on the ground beside me, and my head and shoulders were dripping with water. "Ah!" said my companion, with a sigh of relief, "that's better. You'll... Humanity On Ptah
The magnificent abundance of the seventh great harvest, which ripened late in the year of our arrival, attracted a multitude of both men and animals from all the out-lying countries into Kem to assist in gathering it, and many of them remained to ... Hunger
Hunger, prolonged, is temporary madness! The brain is at work without its required food, and the most fantastic notions fill the mind. Hitherto I had never known what hunger really meant. I was likely to understand it now. And yet, three months... Hyperbola Or Parabola
We may, perhaps, be astonished to find Barbicane and his companions so little occupied with the future reserved for them in their metal prison which was bearing them through the infinity of space. Instead of asking where they were going, they pa... Hypnotic Torture
Some twenty minutes later the ship arrived. It settled down slowly into the ravine on its repeller rays until it was but a few feet above the tree tops. There it was stopped, and floated steadily, while a little cage was let down on a wire. Into t... I Am Coming!
The morning following the capture of Virginia Maxon by Muda Saffir, Professor Maxon, von Horn, Sing Lee and the sole surviving lascar from the crew of the Ithaca set out across the strait toward the mainland of Borneo in the small boat which the d... I Elude My Watch Dog
Sola stared into the brute's wicked-looking eyes, muttered a word or two of command, pointed to me, and left the chamber. I could not but wonder what this ferocious-looking monstrosity might do when left alone in such close proximity to such a re... I Find Dejah
The major-domo to whom I reported had been given instructions to station me near the person of the jeddak, who, in time of war, is always in great danger of assassination, as the rule that all is fair in war seems to constitute the entire ethics o... I Form My Resolution
Three seconds before the arrival of J. B. Hobson's letter I no more thought of pursuing the unicorn than of attempting the passage of the North Sea. Three seconds after reading the letter of the honourable Secretary of Marine, I felt that my true v... I Have A Serious Talk With John
For some days past it had been becoming more and more evident to me that John was quite infatuated with Siloni, and also that she was not unwilling to receive his attentions. I could, therefore, no longer remain a silent spectator, so took... I Learn The Language
As I came back to myself I glanced at Sola, who had witnessed this encounter and I was surprised to note a strange expression upon her usually expressionless countenance. What her thoughts were I did not know, for as yet I had learned but little ... I Make A Most Amazing Discovery
I was so utterly taken aback at this most unexpected greeting in my own native language by one who was apparently the chief inhabitant of this other world that I found it very difficult to collect my thoughts and make a suitable reply. I... I Reach Morganton
The twenty-seventh of April, having left Washington the night before, I arrived at Raleigh, the capital of the State of North Carolina. Two days before, the head of the federal police had called me to his room. He was awaiting me with some i... I'm A Stranger Here Myself
One can't be too cautious about the people one meets in Tangier. They're all weirdies of one kind or another. Me? Oh, I'm A Stranger Here Myself The Place de France is the town's hub. It m... Iceland! But What Next?
The day for our departure arrived. The day before it our kind friend M. Thomsen brought us letters of introduction to Count Trampe, the Governor of Iceland, M. Picturssen, the bishop's suffragan, and M. Finsen, mayor of Rejkiavik. My uncle expressed...