The South Pacific Sailing Directory

: Greener Than You Think

67. I cannot say the world greeted the end of the North American

continent with either rejoicing or regret. Relief, yes. When the news of

the last demolition was given and it was clear the Grass was unable to

bridge the gap, the imaginative could almost hear mankind emit a vast

sigh. The world was saved, they could go about their business now,

having written off a sixth of themselves.



I was reminded of Mi s Francis' remark that if you cut off a man's leg

you bestow upon him a crippled mentality. For approximately two

centuries the United States had been a leg of the global body, a limb so

constantly inflicted with growingpains it caused the other parts to

writhe in sympathy. Now the member was cut off and everyone thought that

with the troublesome appendage gone life would be pleasanter and

simpler. Debtor nations expanded their chests when they remembered Uncle

Shylock was no more. Industrial countries looked eagerly to enlarge

their markets in those places where Americans formerly sold goods. Small

states whose inhabitants were occasionally addicted to carrying off

tourists and holding them for ransom now felt they could dispense with

those foreign undersecretaries whose sole business it had been to write

diplomatic notes of apology.



But it was a crippled world and the lost leg still twitched spectrally.

I don't think I speak now as a native of the United States, for with my

international interests I believe I have become completely a

cosmopolitan, but for everyone, Englishman, Italian, Afrikander or

citizen of Liberia. The disappearance of America created a revolution in

their lives, a change perhaps not immediately apparent, but eventually

to be recognized by all.



It was the trivial things we Americans had taken for granted as part of

our daily lives and taught the rest of the world to appreciate which

were most quickly missed. The substitution of English, Turkish, Egyptian

or Russian cigarettes for good old Camels or Luckies; the impossibility

of buying a bottle of cocacola at any price; the disappearance of the

solacing wad of chewinggum; the pulsing downbeat of a hot band--these

were the first things whose loss was noticed.



For a long time I had been too busy to attend movingpictures, except

rarely, but a man--especially a man with much on his mind--needs

relaxation and I would not choose the foreign movies with their morbid

emphasis on problems and crime and sex in preference to the cleancut

American product which always satisfied the nobler feelings by showing

the reward of the honest, the downfall of evildoers and the purity of

love and motherhood. Art is all very well, but need it be sordid?



As I told George Thario, I am no philistine; I think the Parthenon and

the Taj Mahal are lovely buildings, but I would not care to have an

office in either of them--give me Radio City. I don't mind the highbrow

programs the British Broadcasting Corporation put on; I myself am quite

capable of understanding and enjoying them, but I imagine there are

thousands of housewives who would prefer a good serial to bring romance

into their lives. I don't object to a commercial world in which

competitors go through the formality of pretending to be scrupulously

fair in talking about each others' products, but I must admit I missed

the good old American slapdash advertising which yelled, Buy my

deodorant or youll stink; wash your mouth with my antiseptic or youll

lose your job; brush your teeth with my dentifrice or no one will kiss

you; powder your face with my leadarsenate or youll keep your

maidenhead. I would give a lot of money to hear a singing commercial

once more or watch the neon lights north of Times Square urge me to buy

something for which I have no possible use. Living within your income is

fine, but the world lacks the goods youd have bought on the

installmentplan; getting what you need is sound policy, but how many

lives were lightened by the young men working their way through college,

or the fullerbrushman?



I think there was a subconscious realization of this which came

gradually to the top. In the beginning the almost universal opinion was

that the loss of the aching limb was for the better. I have heard

socalled cultured foreigners discuss the matter in my presence,

doubtless unaware I was an American. No more tourists, they gloated, to

stand with their backs to the Temple of Heaven in Pekin and explain the

superior construction of the Masonic Hall at Cedar Rapids; no more

visitors to the champagne caves at Rheims to inquire where they could

get a shot of real bourbon; no more music lovers at Salzburg or

Glyndebourne to regret audibly the lack of a peppy swingtune; no more

gourmets in Vienna demanding thick steaks, rare and smothered in onions.



But this period of smug selfcongratulation was soon succeeded by a

strange nostalgia which took the form of romanticizing the lost land.

American books were reprinted in vast quantities in the Englishspeaking

nations and translated anew in other countries. American movies were

revived and imitated. Fashionable speech was powdered with what were

conceived to be Yankee expressions and a southern drawl was assiduously

cultivated.



Bestselling historical novels were laid in the United States and popular

operas were written about Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Kit Carson.

Men told their growing sons to work hard, for now there was left no land

of opportunity to which they could emigrate, no country where they could

become rich overnight with little effort. Instead of fairytales children

demanded stories of fortyniners and the Wedding of the Rails; and on the

streets of Bombay and Cairo urchins, probably quite unaware of the

memorial gesture, could be heard whistling Casey Jones.



But handinhand with this newfound romantic love went a completely

practical attitude toward those Americans still existing in the flesh.

The earliest expatriates, being generally men of substance, were well

received. The thousands who had crossed by small boats from Canada to

Greenland and from Greenland to Iceland to Europe were by definition in

a different category and found the quota system their fathers and

grandfathers had devised used to deny their own entrance.



They were as bewildered and hurt as children that any nation could be at

once so shortsighted and so heartless as to bar homeless wanderers. We

bring you knowledge and skills and our own need, they said in effect, we

will be an asset to your country if you admit us. The Americans could

not understand; they themselves had been fair to all and only kept out

undesirable immigrants.



Gradually the world geared itself to a slower tempo. The gogetter

followed the brontosaurus to extinction, and we Americans with the

foresight to carry on our businesses from new bases profited by the

unAmerican backwardness of our competitors. At this time I daresay I was

among the hundred most important figures of the world. In the marketing

and packaging of our original products I had been forced to acquire

papermills and large interests in aluminum and steel; from there the

progression to tinmines and rollingmills, to coalfields and railroads,

to shippinglines and machineshops was not far. Consolidated Pemmican,

once the center of my business existence, was now but a minor point on

its periphery. I expanded horizontally and vertically, delighted to show

my competitors that Americans, even when deprived of America, were not

robbed of the traditional American enterprise.





68. It was at this time, many months after we had given up all hope of

hearing from Joe again, that General Thario received a longdelayed

package from his son. It contained the third movement of the symphony

and a covering letter:



"Dear Father--Stuart Thario--General-- I shall not finish this letter

tonight; it will be sent with as much of the First Symphony as makes a

worthy essence when it goes. The whole is greater than the sum of its

parts, but there is a place (perhaps not in life, but somewhere) for the

imperfect, for the incomplete. The great and small alike achieve

fulfillment, satisfaction--must this be a ruthless denial of all

between?



"I have always despised musicologists, makers of programnotes, little

men who tell you the opening chords of Opus 67 describe Fate Knocking at

the Door or the call of the yellowhammer. A child draws a picture and

writes on it, 'This is a donkey,' and when grown proves it to be a

selfportrait by translating the Jupiter Symphony into words. Having said

this, let me stultify myself--but for private ears alone--as a bit of

personal history, not an explanation to be appended to the score.



"I started out to express in terms of strings and winds the emotions

roused in me by the sight and thoughts of the Grass, much as LvB took a

mistaken idealization of his youth as a startingpoint for Opus 55; but

just as no man is an island, so no theme stands alone. There is a cord

binding the lesser to the greater; a mystic union between all things.

The Grass is not an entity, but an aspect. I thought I was writing about

my country, conceived of myself in a reversed snobbishness, a haughty

humility, a proud abasement, as a sort of superior Smetana. (Did you

know that as a boy I dreamed of the day when I should receive my

commission as second lieutenant?)



Boston, Massachusetts



"I interrupted this letter to sketch some of the middle section of the

fourth movement and I have wasted a precious week following a false

trail. And of course the thought persists that it may not have been a

false trail at all, but the right one; the business of saying something

is a perpetual wrestle with doubts.



"We leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination--Portsmouth probably

and then somewhere in Maine, hoping to wrench from fate the time to

finish the score. It seems more than a little pompous to continue my

explanation. The Grass, the United States, humanity, God--whatever we

write about we write about the same things.



"Still there is a limit to individual perception and it seems to me my

concern--at least my musical concern--is enclosed by Canada and Mexico,

the Pacific and Atlantic. So, rightly or wrongly, even if the miracle

occur and I do finish in time, I cannot leave. A short distance, such a

short distance from where I scribble these words, Vanzetti died. No more

childish thought than atonement was ever conceived. It is a base and

baseless gratification. Evil is not recalled. So I do not sentence

myself for the murder of Vanzetti or for my manifold crimes; who am I to

pass judgment, even on me? But all of us, accusers and accused,

condemners and condemned, will remain--forever indistinguishable. If the

requiem for our faults and our virtues, if the celebration of our past

and the prayer for our resurrection can be orchestrated, then the fourth

movement will be finished. If not--



Aroostook, Maine



"By the best calculations we have about three more days. I do not think

the symphony can be finished, but the thought no longer disturbs me. It

would be a good thing to complete it, just as it would be a good thing

to sit on fleecy clouds and enjoy eternal, nevermelting, nevercloying

icecreamcones, celestially flavored.



"The man who is to carry this letter waits impatiently. I must finish

quickly before his conviction of my insanity outweighs the promises I

have made of reward from you and causes him to run from me. My love to

Mama, the siblings and yourself and kindly regards to the great magnate.



Joe"





69. About the same time I also received a letter which somehow got

through the protective screening of my secretaries:



"Albert Weener,

Savoy Hotel,

Thames Embankment, WC1.



"Sir:

You may recall making an offer I considered premature. It is now no

longer so. I am at home afternoons from 1 until 6 at 14, Little Bow

Street, EC3 (3rd floor, rear).

Josephine Spencer Francis"



In spite of her rudeness at our last meeting, my good nature caused me

to send a cab for her. She wore the identical gray suit of years before

and her face was still unlined and dubiously clean.



"How do you do, Miss Francis? I'm glad to find you among the lucky ones.

Nowadays if we don't hear from old friends we automatically assume their

loss."



She looked at me as one scans an acquaintance whose name has been

embarrassingly forgotten. "There is no profit for you in this

politeness, Weener," she said abruptly. "I am here to beg a favor."



"Anything I can do for you, Miss Francis, will be a pleasure," I assured

her.



She began using a toothpick, but it was not the oldfashioned gold

one--just an ordinary wooden splinter. "Hum. You remember asking me to

superintend gathering specimens of Cynodon dactylon?"



"Circumstances have greatly altered since then," I answered.



"They have a habit of doing so. I merely mentioned your offer because

you coupled it with a chance to advance my own research as an

inducement. I am on the way to develop the counteragent, but to advance

further I need to make tests upon the living grass itself. The World

Control Congress has refused me permission to use specimens. I have no

private means of evading their fiat."



"An excellent thing. The decrees of the congress are issued for the

protection of all."



"Hypocrisy as well as unctuousness."



"What do you expect me to do?"



"You have a hundred hireling chemists, all of them with a string of

degrees, at your service. I want to borrow two of them and be landed on

some American mountain, above the snowline, where I can continue to

work."



"Besides being illegal--to mention such a thing is apparently

hypocritical--such a hazardous and absurd venture is hardly in the

nature of a business proposition, Miss Francis."



"Philanthropic, then."



"I have given fifty thousand pounds to set up nurseryschools right here

in London--"



"So the mothers of the little brats will be free to work in your

factories."



"I have donated ten thousand pounds to Indian famine relief--"



"So that you might cut the wages of your Hindu workers."



"I have subscribed five thousand pounds for sanitation in Szechwan--"



"Thereby lessening absenteeism from sickness among your coolies."



"I will not stoop to answer your insinuations," I said. "I merely

mentioned my gifts to show that my charities are on a worldwide scale

and there is little room in them for the relief of individuals."



"Do you think I come to you for a personal sinecure? I don't ask if you

have no concern outside selfish interest, for the answer is immediate

and obvious; but isnt it to that same selfish interest to protect what

remains of the world? If the other continents go as North America has

gone, will you alone be divinely translated to some extraterrestrial

sphere? And if so, will you take your wealth and power with you?"



"I am supporting three laboratories devoted exclusively to

antigraminous research and anyway the rest of the world is amply

protected by the oceans."



She removed the toothpick in order to laugh unpleasantly. "Once a

salesman always a salesman, Weener. Lie to yourself, deny facts, brazen

it out. The world was safe behind the saltband too, in the days when

Josephine Francis was a quack and charlatan."



"Admitting your great attainments, Miss Francis, the fact remains that

you are a woman and the adventure you propose is hardly one for a lady

to undertake."



"Weener, you are ineffable. I'm not a lady--I'm a chemist."



The conversation deadlocked as I waited for her to go. Oddly enough, in

spite of her sex and the illegality of her proposal, I was inclined to

help her, if she had approached me in a reasonable manner and not with

the uncouth bearing of a superior toward an inferior. If she could

find a counteragent, I thought ... if she could find a weapon, then the

possibility of utilizing the Grass as a raw material for food

concentrates, a design still tantalizingly just beyond the reach of our

researchworkers, might be realized. Labor costs would be cut to a

minimum....



I could not let the woman be her own worst enemy; I was big enough to

overlook her unfortunate attitudes and see through the cranky exterior

to the worthy idealist and true woman beneath. I was interrupted in my

thoughts by Miss Francis speaking again.



"North American landtitles have no value right now, but a man with money

who knew ahead of time the Grass could be destroyed ..."



How clumsy, I thought, trying to appeal to a cupidity I don't possess;

as if I would cheat people by buying up their very homes for sordid

speculation. "Miss Francis," I said, "purely out of generosity and in

remembrance of old times I am inclined to consider helping you. I

suppose you have the details of the equipment you will need, the

qualifications of your assistants, and a rough idea of what mountain you

might prefer as a location?"



"Of course," and she began rattling off a catalogue of items, stabbing

the air with her toothpick as a sort of running punctuation.



I stopped her with a raised hand. "Please. Reduce your list to writing

and leave it with my secretary. I will see what can be done."



As soon as she had gone I picked up the phone and cabled Tony Preblesham

to report to me immediately. The decision to send him with Miss Francis

had been instantaneous, but had I thought about it for hours no happier

design could have been conceived. Outside of General Thario there was

not another man in my organization I could trust so implicitly. The

expedition required double, no, triple secrecy and Preblesham could not

only guard against any ulterior and selfish aims Miss Francis might

entertain--to say nothing of the erratic or purely feminine impulses

which could possibly operate to the disadvantage of all concerned--but

take the opportunity to give the continent a general survey, both to

keep in view the utilization of the weed, whether or not it could be

conquered; and whatever possibilities a lay observer might see as to the

Grass perishing of itself.





70.



"Mr. Albert Weener,

Queen Elizabeth Hotel,

Perth, Western Australia, A.C.



"Dear Sir:--

According to yr. instructions our party left Paramaribo on the 9th

inst. for Medellin, giving out that we were going to see possible

tin deposits near there. At Medellin I checked with our men & was

told that work gangs with the stuff needed to make landing fields

together with caches of gas & oil, enough for 3 times the flying

required had been dropped both at Mt. Whitney & on Banks Island. A.

W., I tell you the boys down there are on their toes. Of course I

did not tell them this, but gave them a real old fashioned Pep Talk,

& told them if they really made good they might be moved up to Rio

or Copenhagen or may be even London.



"Every thing being O.K. in Medellin, we left on the 12th inst.,

heading at first South to fool any nosey cops & then straight West

so as to be out of range of the patrol boats. It was quite late

before we could head North and the navigator was flying by

instruments so it was not until dawn that we saw land. You can sneer

all you like at Bro. Paul (& of course he has not had the benefits

of an Education like you, A. W.) but I want to tell you that when I

looked out of the port & saw nothing but green grass where houses &

trees & mtns. ought to have been, I remembered that I was a

backslider & sinful man. However, this is beside the point.



"The lady professor, Miss Francis I mean, & Mr. White & Mr. Black

were both so excited they could hardly eat, but kept making funny

remarks in some foreign language which I do not understand. However

I do not think there was any thing wrong or disloyal to you in their

conversation.



"You would have thought that flying over so much green would have

got tiresome after some time, but you would have been wrong. I am

sorry I cannot describe it to you, but I can only say again that it

made me think of my Account with my Maker.



"While I think of it, altho it does not belong here, in Paramaribo I

had to fire our local man as he had got into trouble with the Police

there & was giving Cons. Pem. a bad name. He said it was on the

Firm's account, but I told him you did not approve of breaking the

Law at all.



"We had no trouble sighting the party at Mt. Whitney & I want to

tell you, A. W., it was a great relief to get rid of the Scientists

altho they are no doubt all right in their way. Some of the work

gang kicked at being left behind altho that was in our agreement.

They said they were sick of the snow & the sight of the Grass

beyond. I said we only had room in the transport for the Banks Is.

gang & anyway they would have company now. I promised them we would

pick them up on our next trip.



"Miss Francis & the 2 others acted like crazy. They kept shaking

each other's hands & saying We are here, we are here, altho any body

but a Nut would have thought saying it was a waste of time as even a

small child could have seen that they were. And any way, why any

body should want to be there is some thing beyond me.



"We took off from Whitney on the 14th inst., flying back S. West.

There were no land marks, but the navigator told me when we were

over the Site of L. A. I have to report that the Grass looked no

different in this Area, where it is the oldest. Then we flew North

E., looking for the Gt. Salt Lake according to yr. instructions. I

am sorry to say that we could not find it altho we flew back & forth

for some time, searching while the instruments were checked. The

Lake has disappeared in the Grass.



"We headed North E. by E., finding no land marks except a few peaks

above the snow on the Rocky Mtns. I am very glad to say that the Gt.

Lakes are still there, altho much smaller & L. Erie & L. Ontario so

shrunk I might have missed them if the pilot had not pointed them

out. The St. Lawrence River is of course gone.



"We followed the line of the big Canadian Lakes N., but except for

Depressions (which may be Swamps) in the latitudes of the Gt. Bear &

Gt. Slave Lakes, there is nothing but Grass. We stayed over night at

Banks Is. & it was very cold & miserable, but we were happy to

remember that there was no Grass underneath the Snow below us. Next

morning (the 16th) after fueling up we took off (with the ground

crew) for the Homeward trip.



"Stopping at Whitney, every thing was O.K. except that I did not see

the lady professor (Miss Francis, I mean) as Mr. White and Mr. Black

said she was too busy.



"I will be in London to meet you on the 1st as arranged & give you

any further news you want. Until then, I remain,

Yrs. Truly,

A. Preblesham, Vice-Pres. in Chge of Field Operations,

Cons. Pem."



I cannot say Preblesham's report was particularly enlightening, but it

at least squelched any notion the Grass might be dying of itself. I did

not expect any great results from the scientists' expedition, but I felt

it worth a gamble. In the meantime I dismissed the lost continent from

my mind and turned to more immediate concerns.





71. The disappearance of American foundries and the withdrawal of the

Russian products from export after their second revolution had forced a

boom in European steel. English, French, and German manufacturers of

automobiles, rails, and locomotives, anticipating tremendously enlarged

outlets for their output--even if those new markets still fell short of

the demand formerly drawing upon the American factories--had earmarked

the entire world supply for a long time to come.



Since I owned large blocks of stock, not only in the industries, but in

the rollingmills as well, this boom was profitable to me. I had long

since passed the point where it was necessary, no matter how great my

expenses or philanthropies, for me to exert myself further; but as I

have always felt anyone who gains wealth without effort is no better

than a parasite, I was contracting for new plants in Bohemia, Poland,

Northern Italy and France. I did not neglect buying heavily into the

Briey Basin and into the Swedish oremines to ensure the future supply of

these mills. In spite of the able assistance of Stuart Thario and the

excellent spadework of Preblesham, I was so busy at this time--for in

addition to everything else the sale of concentrates diagrammed an

everascending spiral--that food and sleep seemed to be only irritating

curtailments of the workingday.



It was the fashion when I was a youth for novelists to sneer at

businessmen and proclaim that the conduct of industry was a simple

affair, such as any halfwit could attend to with but a portion of his

mind. I wish these cynics could have come to know the delicate workings

and balances of my intricate empire. We in responsible positions, and

myself most of all, were on a constant alert, ready for instant decision

or personal attention to a mass of new detail at any moment.





72. On one of the occasions when I had to fly to Copenhagen it was

Winifred and not General Thario who met me at the airport. "General T is

so upset," she explained in her vivacious way, "that I had to come

instead. But perhaps I should have sent Pauline?"



I assured her I was pleased to see her and hastened to express concern

for her father.



"Oh, it's not him at all, really," she said. "It's Mama. She's all

bothered about Joe."



I lowered my voice respectfully and said I was sure Mrs Thario was

overcome with grief and perhaps I had better not intrude at such a time.



"Poo!" dissented Winifred. "Mama doesnt know what grief is. She's simply

delighted at Joe's doing a Custer, but she's awfully bothered about his

music."



"In what way?" I asked. "Do you mean getting it performed?"



"Getting it performed, nothing. Getting it suppressed. That a long line

of generals and admirals should wind up in a composer is to her a

disgrace which will need a great deal of living down. It preys on her

mind. Poor old Stuart is home now reading her choice passages from the

Winning of the West by Theodore Roosevelt to soothe her nerves."



I had been more than a little apprehensive of meeting Mama again, but

Winifred's report seemed to reassure me that she would be confined, if

not to bed, at least to her own apartments. I was sadly disillusioned to

find her ensconced in a comfortable armchair beside a brightly burning

fire, the general with a book held open by his thumb. He greeted me with

his usual affection. "Albert, I'm sorry I wasnt able to get to the

airport."



I shook his hand and turned to his wife. "I regret to hear you are

indisposed, Mrs Thario."



"Spare me your damned crocodile tears. Where is my son?"



"In his last letter he suggested he would remain in our country as long

as it existed; however it is possible--even probable he escaped. Let us

hope so, Mrs Thario."



"That's the sort of damned hogwash you feed to green troops, not to

veterans. My son is dead. In action. My grandfather went the same way at

Chancellorsville. Do you think me some whimpering broompusher to weep at

the loss of a son on the battlefield?"



Stuart Thario put his hand on her arm. "Easy ... bloodpressure ... no

excitement."



"Not in regimentals," said Mama, and relapsed into silence.



We had a very uneasy dinner, during which we were unable to discuss

business owing to the presence of the ladies. Afterward the general and

I withdrew with our coffee--he did not drink at home, so I missed the

clarity which always accompanied his indulgence--and were deep in

figures and calculations when Winifred summoned us hastily.



"General, Mr Weener, come quickly! Mama ..."



We hurried into the living room, I for one anticipating Mama if not in

the throes of a stroke at least in a faint. But she was standing upright

before the open fire, an unsheathed cavalry saber in her hand. It was

clearly a family relic, for from its guard dangled the golden tassel of

the United States Army and on its naked blade were little spots of rust,

but it looked dangerous enough as she warned us off with a sweep of it.

In her other hand I recognized the bulky manuscript of George Thario's

First Symphony which she was burning, page by page.



"Some damned impostor," she said. "Some damned impostor."



"Harriet," protested the general, "Harriet, please ... the boy's work

... only copy ..."



She fed another leaf to the fire. "... impostor ..."



"Harriet--" he advanced toward her, but she waved him away with the

sharp blade--"can't burn George's work this way ... gave his life ..."



I had not thought highly of Joe's talents as a musician, believing them

byandlarge to be but reflections of his unfortunate affectations. I

think I can say I appreciate good music and Ive often taken a great deal

of pleasure from hearing a hotelband play Rubinstein's Melody in F, or

like classical numbers, during mealtimes. But even if Joe's symphony was

but a series of harsh and disjointed sounds, I thought its destruction a

dreadful thing for Mama to do and the more shocking, aside from any

question of artistic taste, because of its reversal of all we associate

with the attitude of true motherhood.



"Mrs Thario," I protested, "as your son's friend I beg you to

consider--"



"Impudence," declared Mama, pointing the sword at me so that I

involuntarily backed up although already at a respectful distance.



"Damned impudence," she repeated, feeding another page to the fire.

"Came into my house, bold as brass and said, 'Cream if you please.' Ha!

I'll cream him, I will!" And she made a violent gesture with the saber

as though skewering me upon its length.



I whispered to Constance, who was standing closest, that her mother had

undoubtedly lost her reason and should be forcibly restrained. Unhappily

the old lady's keen ears caught my suggestion.



"Oho. 'Deranged,' am I? I spend my life making more money than I can

spend, do I? I push my way against all decency into the company of my

betters, boring them and myself for no earthly reason, do I? I live on

crackers and milk because Ive spent my nervous energy piling up the

means to buy an endless supply of steaks and chops my doctor forbids me

to eat? I starve my employees half to death in order to give the money I

steal from them to some charity which hands a small part of it back, ay?

I hire lobbyists or bribe officials to pass laws and then employ others

to break them? I foster nationalist organizations with one hand and

build up international cartels with the other, do I? I'm crazy, am I?"



Excited by her own rhetoric she put several pages at once into the

flames. Constance pleaded, "Mama, this is all we have left of Joe.

Please, Mama."



"Sundays the church banner is raised above the Flag. I never heard a

post chaplain say immortality was contained on pieces of paper."



"Comfort, then, Mama," suggested Winifred.



"Creative work," muttered the general.



"Is it some trivial thing to endure the pangs of childbed that the

creations of men are so exalted? I have offered my life on a battlefield

no less and no more than my grandfather fought on at Chancellorsville.

Little minds do not judge, but I judge. I bore a son; he was my

extension as this weapon is my extension."



She thrust the sword forward to emphasize her utterance. "I will not

hesitate to judge my son. If he did not die in proper uniform at least I

shall not have him go down as a maker of piano notes instead of

buglecalls." She threw the balance of the score into the fire and

stirred it into a blaze with the steel's point.



The ringing of the telephonebell put a period to the scene. Constance,

who spoke several languages, answered it. She carried on an

incomprehensible conversation for a minute and then motioned to me with

her head. "It's for you, Mr Weener. Rio. I'll wait till they get the

connection through." She turned to the mouthpiece again and encouraged

the operator with a soothing flow of words.



I was vastly relieved at the interruption. It was undoubtedly Preblesham

calling me on some routine matter, but it served to distract attention

from the still muttering old lady and give her a chance to subside.



Preblesham's voice came in a bodiless waver over the miles. "A W? Can

you hear me? I can give you a tip. Just about three hours ahead of the

radio and newspapers. Can you understand me? Our big competitor has

bought the adjoining property. Do you get me, A W?"



I nodded at the receiver as though he could see me, my thoughts racing

furiously ahead. I had understood him all right: the Grass had somehow

jumped the saltwater gap and was loose upon another continent.





73. I had about three hours in which to dispose of all my South

American holdings before their value vanished. Telephone facilities in

the Thario house, though adequate for the transaction of the general's

daily business, were completely unequal to the emergency. Even if they

had not been, Mama's occasional sallies from her fireplace fort, saber

waving threateningly, frequently endangered half our communications and

we suffered all the while from the idiosyncrasies of the continental

operators who seem unable ever to make a clear connection, varying this

annoyance by a habit of either dropping dead or visiting the nearest

cafe at those crucial moments when they did not interrupt a tense

interchange by polite inquiries as to whether msieu had been connected.



I must say that in this crisis Stuart Thario displayed all his soldierly

qualities to the full. Sweeping aside his domestic concerns as he would

at the order of mobilization, he became swift, decisive, vigorous. The

first call he put through was to the Kristian IV Hotel, engaging every

available empty room so that we might preempt as much of the switchboard

as possible. Pressing Constance and Winifred into service as secretaries

until his own officestaff could be summoned and leaving Pauline to deal

with Mama, he had us established in the hotel less than threequarters of

an hour from the time Preblesham phoned.



Even as the earliest calls were being put through a barely perceptible

signal passed from the general to Winifred and presently large parts of

the Kristian IV bar were being arranged on a long table at the general's

elbow. I had little time for observation since I had to exert all my

powers of salesmanship on unseen financiers to persuade them by

indirection that I was facing a financial crisis and they had a chance

to snap up my South American holdings at fractions of their values; but

out of the corner of my eye I admired the way Stuart Thario continuously

sipped from his constantly refilled glass without hesitating in his

duplicating endeavors.



I expected the news to break and end our efforts at any moment, but the

quickness with which I had seized upon Preblesham's information

confirmed the proverb about the early bird; the threehour reprieve

stretched to five and by the time Havas flashed the news I had liquefied

almost all of my now worthless assets--and to potential financial

rivals. Needless to say I had not trusted solely to the honor of the men

with whom I had conversed, but had the sale confirmed in each case by an

agent on the spot who accepted a check, draft, or cash from the buyer.

Only on paper did I suffer the slightest loss; in actuality my position

became three times as strong as before.





74. The world took the extension of the Grass to South America with a

philosophic calm which can only be described as amazing. Even the Latins

themselves seemed more concerned with how the Grass had jumped the gap

than with the impending fate of their continent. The generally accepted

theory was that it had somehow mysteriously come by way of the West

Indies, although as yet the Grass had not appeared on any of those

islands, and even Cuba, within sight of the submerged Florida Keys, was

apparently safe behind her protective supercyclone fans. But the fact

the Grass had appeared first at Medellin in Colombia rather than in the

tiny bit of Panama remaining seemed to show it had not come directly

from the daggerpointed mass poised above the continent.



La Prensa of Buenos Aires said in a long editorial entitled "Does

Humanity Betray Itself?": "When the Colossus of the North was evilly

enchanted, many Americans (except possibly our friends across the River

Plate) breathed more easily. Now it would seem their rejoicing was

premature and the doom of the Yankee is also to be the doom of our older

civilization. How did this verdant disease spread from one continent to

another? That is the question which tortures every human heart from the

Antarctic to the Caribbean.



"It is believed the cordon around North America has not been generally

respected. Scientists with the noblest motives, and adventurers urged on

by the basest, are alike believed to have visited the forbidden

continent. It may well be that on one of these trips the seeds of the

gigantic Cynodon dactylon were brought back. It is well known that the

agents of a certain Yankee capitalist have been accustomed to taking off

on mysterious journeys near the very spot now afflicted by the emerald

plague."



It was a dastardly hint and the sort of thing I had long come to look

upon as inseparable from my position. Of all peoples the Latinamericans

have long been known as the most notoriously ungrateful for the work we

did in developing their countries. Why, in some backward parts, the

natives had been content to live by hunting and fishing till we

furnished them with employment and paid them enough so they could buy

salt fish and canned meats. Fortunately La Prensa's innuendo, so

obviously inspired by envy, was not taken up, and attention soon turned

from the insoluble problem of the bridging of the gap to the southward

progress of the weed itself.



From the very first, everyone took for granted the victory of the Grass.

No concerted efforts were made either to confine or to destroy it. The

World Congress to Combat the Grass, far from being inactive, worked

heroically, but it got little cooperation from the peoples most closely

affected. When at one time it seemed as though the congress had got hold

of a possible weapon, the Venezuelans refused them the necessary sites

and Brazil would not allow passage of foreign soldiers over its soil.

Nationalism suddenly became rampant. "We will die as Ecuadorians,

descendants of the Incas," exclaimed the leading newspaper of Quito.

El Gaucho of Lima pointed out caustically that most of Ecuador's area

really belonged to Peru and the Peruvians were the true descendants of

the Incas anyway. "We shall all die as unashamed Peruvians!" thundered

El Gaucho.



In vain the Church pointed out the difference between Christian

resignation and sinful suicide. The reply of most South Americans, when

they bothered to reply at all, was either that the coming of the Grass

expressed God's will toward them or else to scorn the Church entirely.

Imitations of Brother Paul's movement flourished, with additions and

refinements suited to the Latin temperament.



So the efforts of the World Congress were almost entirely limited to

searching each ship, plane, and individual leaving the doomed continent

to be sure none of the fatal seeds were transported. Even this

precaution was resented as an infringement on national sovereignty, but

the resentment was limited to bellicose pronouncements in the

newspapers; the republics looked on sullenly while their honor was

systematically violated by phlegmatic inspectors.





75. The Grass grew to unheardof heights in the tropical valley of the

Amazon. It washed the slopes of the Andes as it had the Cordilleras and

the Rockies, leaving only the highest peaks free of its presence. It

raced across the llanos, the savannas and the pampas and covered the

high plateaus in a slow relentless growth.



The people ran from the Grass, not in a straight line from north to

south, but by indirection, seeking first the seacoasts and then escape

from the afflicted land. Those North Americans who had eluded the Grass

once did not satisfy themselves with halfmeasures when their sanctuary

was lost, but bought passage on any bottom capable, however dubiously,

of keeping out the sea and embarked for the farthest regions.





76. In point of time, I am now about halfway through my narrative. It

is hard to believe that only eleven years have passed since the Grass

conquered South America; indeed, it is extraordinarily difficult for me

to reconstruct these middle years at all. Not because they were hard or

unpleasant--on the contrary, they carried me from one success to

another--but because they have, in memory, the dreamlike quality of

unreality, elusive, vague and tantalizing.



Like a dream, too, was the actual progress of the Grass. We were all, I

think, impressed by the sense of repetition, of a scene enacted over and

over again. It was this quality which gives my story, now that I look

back upon it, a certain distortion, for no one, hearing it for the first

time, and not as any reader of these words must be, thoroughly familiar

with the events, could believe in the efforts made to combat the Grass.

These efforts existed; we did not yield without struggles; we fought for

South America as we had fought for North America. But it was a nightmare

fight; our endeavors seem retrospectively those of the paralyzed....



The Grass gripped the continent's great northern bulge, squeezed it into

submission and worked its way southward to the slender tip, driving the

inhabitants before it, duplicating previous acts by sending an influx

from sparsely to thickly settled areas, creating despair, terror,

disruption and confusion; pestilence, hysteria and famine.



The drama was not played through in one act, but many; to a world

waiting the conclusion it dragged on through interminable months and

years, offering no change, no sudden twists of fortune, no elusive

hopes. At last, mercifully, the tragedy ended; the green curtain came

down and covered the continent to the Strait of Magellan. The Grass

looked wistfully across at Tierra del Fuego, the land of ice and fire,

but even its voracity balked, momentarily at any rate, at the

inhospitable island and left it to whatever refugees chose its shores as

a slower but still certain death.



South America finally gone, the rest of the globe breathed easier. It

would be a slander on humanity to say there was actual rejoicing when

the World Congress sealed off this continent too, but whatever sorrow

was felt for its loss was balanced by the feeling that at long last the

peril of the Grass was finally ended. No longer would speculative

Germans, thoughtful Chinese or wakeful Englishmen wonder if the

supercyclone fans were indeed an effective barrier; no longer would

Cubans, Colombians or Venezuelans look northward apprehensively. Oceanic

barriers now confined the peril and though the world was shrunken and

hurt it was yet alive. More, it was free from fear for the first time

since the mutated seeds had blown over the saltband.



I must not give the impression that a wiping off of the Grass from the

accountbooks of humanity was universal and complete. The World Congress

periodically considered proposals for countermeasures. On the top of

Mount Whitney Miss Francis still labored. New assistants were flown to

her as the old ones wandered down the great rockslide from the old stone

weatherhouse off into the Grass during fits of despondency, went mad

from the realization that, except for problematical survivors on the

polar caps, they were alone in an abandoned hemisphere, or died of

simple homesickness. In the researchlaboratories of Consolidated

Pemmican formulas for utilizing the Grass were still tinkered with, and

the death of almost every publicspirited man of fortune revealed a will

containing bequests to aid those seeking means of controlling the weed.





77. It is not, afterall, a detached history of the past twentyone

years I am writing. Contemporaries are only too well aware of the facts

and posterity will find them dehydrated in textbooks. I started out to

tell of my own personal part in the coming of the Grass, not to take an

Olympian and aloof view of the passion of man.



The very mention of a personal part brings to mind a subject which might

be painful were I of a petty nature. There were people who, willfully

blind to the facts, held me responsible, in the face of all reason, for

the Grass itself. Although it is difficult to believe, there have been

many occasions when I have been denounced by demagogues and my blood

called for by vicious mobs.



But enough of morbid retrospection. I think I can say at this time there

was, with the exception of certain Indian nabobs, hardly a wealthy man

left in the world who did not owe in some way the retention of his

riches to me. I controlled more than half the steel industry; I owned

outright the majority stocks of the world oil cartel; coal, iron,

copper, tin and other mines either belonged directly to me or to

tributary companies in which I held large interests.



Along with the demagoguery of attributing the Grass to Albert Weener

there was the agitation for socialism and the expropriation of all

private property, the attempt to deprive men of the fruit of their

endeavor and reduce everyone to a regimented, miserable level. It is

hardly necessary to say that I spared no effort to combat the insidious

agents of the Fourth International. Fortunately for the preservation of

the free enterprise system, I had tools ready to hand.



The overrunning of the United States wiped out the gangs which operated

so freely there, but remnants made their escape, taking with them to the

older continents their philosophy of life and property. Gathering native

recruits, they began following the familiar patterns and would in time

no doubt have divided the world into countless minute baronies.



However, I was able to subsidize and reason with enough of their leaders

to persuade them that their livelihood and very existence rested on a

basis of private property and that their great danger came not from each

other, but from the advocates of socialism. They saw the point, and

though they did not cease from warring on each other, or mulcting the

general public, they were ruthless in exterminating the socialists and

they left the goods and adjuncts of Consolidated Pemmican and Allied

Industries scrupulously unmolested.



Strange as it sounds, it was not my part in protecting the world from

the philosophy of equality, nor my ramified properties, which gave me

my unique position. Unbelievably, because the change had occurred so

gradually, industry, though still a vital factor, no longer played the

dominant role in the world, but had given the position back to an

earlier occupant. Food was once more paramount in global economy. Loss

of the Americas had cut the supply in half without reducing the

population correspondingly. The Socialist Union remained selfsufficient

and uninterested, while Australia, New Zealand and the cultivated

portions of Africa strove to feed the millions of Europeans and Asiatics

whose lands could not grow enough for their own use. The slightest

falling off of the harvest produced famine.



At this point Consolidated Pemmican practically took over the entire

business of agriculture. Utilizing byproducts, and crops otherwise not

worth gathering, waste materials, and growths inedible without

processing, with plants strung out all over the four continents and with

tremendously reduced shipping costs because of the small compass in

which so much food could be contained, we were able to let our customers

earn their daily concentrates by gathering the raw materials which went

into them. I was not only the wealthiest, most powerful man in the

world, but its savior and providence as well.



With the new feeling of security bathing the world, tension dissolved

into somnolence and the tempo of daily life slackened until it scarcely

seemed to move at all. The waves of anxiety, suspicion and distrust of

an earlier decade calmed into peaceful ripples, hardly noticeable in a

pondlike existence.



No longer beset by thoughts or fears of wars, nations relaxed their

pride, armies were reduced to little more than palaceguards, brassbands

and parade units; while navies were kept up--if periodic painting and

retaining in commission a few obsolete cruisers and destroyers be so

termed--only to patrol the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the lost

hemisphere.



The struggle for existence almost disappeared; the wagescales set by

Consolidated Pemmican were enough to sustain life, and in a world of

limited horizons men became content with that. The bickering

characteristic of industrial dispute vanished; along with it went the

outmoded weapon of the tradesunion. It was a halcyon world and if, as

cranks complained, illiteracy increased rapidly, it could only be

because with everyman's livelihood assured his natural indolence took

the upper hand and he not only lost refinements superficially acquired,

but was uninterested in teaching them to his children.





78. I don't know how I can express the golden, sunlit quality of this

period. It was not an heroic age, no great deeds were performed, no

conflicts resolved, no fundamentshaking ideas broached. Quiet, peace,

content--these were the keywords of the era. Preoccupation with politics

and panaceas gave place to healthier interests: sports and pageants and

giant fairs. Men became satisfied with their lot and if they to a great

extent discarded speculation and disquieting philosophies they found a

useful substitute in quiet meditation.



Until now I had never had the time to live in a manner befitting my

station; but with my affairs running so smoothly that even Stuart Thario

and Tony Preblesham found idle time, I began to turn my attention to the

easier side of life. Of course I never considered making my permanent

home anywhere but in England; for all its parochialism and oddities it

was the nearest I could come to approximating my own country.



I bought a gentleman's park in Hampshire and had the outmoded house torn

down. It had been built in Elizabethan times and was cold, drafty and

uncomfortable, with not one modern convenience. For a time I considered

preserving it intact as a sort of museumpiece and building another home

for myself on the grounds, but when I was assured by experts that Tudor

architecture was not considered to be of surpassing merit and I could

find in addition no other advantageous site, I ordered its removal.



I called in the best architects for consultation, but my own artistic

and practical sense, as they themselves were quick to acknowledge,

furnished the basis for the beautiful mansion I put up. Moved by

nostalgic memories of my lost Southland I built a great and ample

bungalow of some sixty rooms--stucco, topped with asbestos tile. Since

the Spanish motif natural to this form would have been out of place in

England and therefore in bad taste, I had timbers set in the stucco,

although of course they performed no function but that of decoration,

the supports being framework which was not visible.



It was delightful and satisfying to come into the spacious and cozy

livingroom, filled with overstuffed easychairs and comfortable couches,

warmed by the most efficient of centralheating systems or to use one of

the perfectly appointed bathrooms whose every fixture was the best money

could buy and recall the dank stone floors and walls leading up to a

mammoth and--from a thermal point of view--perfectly useless fireplace

flanked by the coatsofarms of deadandgone gentry who were content to

shuffle out on inclement mornings to answer nature's calls in chilly

outhouses.



So large and commodious an establishment required an enormous staff of

servants, which in turn called for a housekeeper and a steward to

supervise their activities, for as I have observed many times, the

farther down one goes on the wagescale the more it is necessary to hire

a highsalaried executive to see that the wage is earned.



I cannot say in general that I ever learned to distinguish between one

retainer and another, except of course my personal manservant and

Burlet, the headbutler whom I hired right from under the nose of the

Marquis of Arpers--his lordship being unable to match my offer. But in

spite of the confusion caused by such a multiplicity of menials, I one

day noticed an undergardener whose face was tantalizingly familiar. He

touched his cap respectfully as I approached, but I had the curious

feeling that it was a taught gesture and not one which came naturally to

him.



"Have you been here long, my good man?" I asked, still trying to place

him.



"No, sir," he answered, "about two weeks."



"Funny. I'm almost certain Ive noticed you before."



He shook his head and made a tentative gesture with the hoe or rake or

whatever the tool was in his hand, as though he would now, with my

permission, resume his labors.



"What is your name?" I inquired, not believing it would jog my memory,

but out of a natural politeness toward inferiors who always feel

flattered by such attention.



"Dinkman," he muttered. "Adam Dinkman."



... That incredibly dilapidated frontlawn, overrun with sickly

devilgrass and spotted with bald patches. Mrs Dinkman's mean bargaining

with a tired man who was doing no more than trying to make a living and

her later domineering harshness toward someone who was in no way

responsible for the misfortune which overcame her. I wondered if she

were still alive or had lost her life in the Grass while an indigent on

public charity. It is indeed a small world, I thought, and how far we

have both come since I humbled myself in order to put food in my stomach

and keep a roof over my head.



"Thank you, Dinkman," I said, turning away.



A warm feeling for a fellow American caused me to call in my steward and

bid him give Dinkman L100, a small fortune to an undergardener, and let

him go. Though he might not realize it immediately, I was doing him a

tremendous favor, for an American with L100 in England was bound to do

better for himself in some small business than he could hope to do as a

mere servant.



Looking back upon this too brief time of tranquillity and satisfaction I

cannot help but sigh for its passing. Preceded and followed by periods

of turbulence and stress, it stands out in my life as an incredible

moment, a soothing dream. Perhaps a faint defect, so small as to be

almost unnoticed, was a feeling of solitariness--an inevitable

concomitant of my position--but this was so slight that I could not even

define it as loneliness and like many another defect it merely

heightened the charm of the whole.



I had wealth, power, the respect of the world. The unavoidable

detachment from the mob was mitigated by simple pleasures. My estate

was a constant delight; the quaint survivals of feudalism among the

tenantry amused me; and though I could not bring myself to pretend an

interest in the absurd affectation of foxhunting, I was well received by

the county people, whose insularity and aloofness I found greatly

exaggerated, perhaps by outsiders not as cosmopolitan as myself.



Excursions to London and other cities where my presence was demanded or

could be helpful afforded me a frequent change of scene and visits by

important people as well as more intimate ones by Preblesham and the

Tharios prevented The Ivies--for so my place was called--from ever

becoming dull to me.



The general fell in love with a certain ale which was brewed on the

premises and declared, in spite of his lifelong rule to the contrary,

that it could be mixed with Irish whisky to make a drink so agreeable

that no sane man would want a better. The girls, particularly Winifred,

were enchanted with my private woods, the gardens and the deerpark; but

Mama, throughout their visits, remained almost entirely silent and aloof

except for the rare remarks which seemed to burst from her as though by

an inescapable inward compulsion. These were always insulting and always

directed at me, but I overlooked them, knowing her to be deranged.





79. Perhaps one of the things I most enjoyed about The Ivies was

wandering through its acres, breathing through my pores, as it were, the

sense of possession. I was walking through the cowslips and violets

punctuating the meadow bordering one of the many little streams, when I

came upon a fellow roughly dressed, the pockets of his shootingjacket

bulging and a fishingline in his hand. For a moment I thought him one of

the gamekeepers and nodded, but his quick look and furtive gestures

instantly revealed him as a poacher.



"Youre trespassing, you know," I said with some severity.



"I know, guvner," he admitted readily, "but I wasnt doing no harm; just

looking at this bit of water here and listening to the birds."



"With a fishingline in your hands?"



"Well, now, guvner, that's by way of being a precaution. You see, when I

go out on a little expedition like this, to inspect the beauties of

nature--which I admit I have no right to do, they being on someone

else's land--I always say to myself, 'Suppose you run into some gent

looking at a lovely fat trout in a brook and he hasnt got no fishline

with him? What could be more philanthropic than I produce my bit of

string and help him out?' Aint that a proper Christian attitude,

guvner?"



"Possibly; but what, may I ask, makes your pockets bulge so

suspiciously? Is that another philanthropy?"



"Accident, guvner, sheer accident. Walking along like this with my head

down I always seem to come upon two or three dead hares or now and then

a partridge or grouse. Natural mortality, you understand. Well, what

could be more humane than to stuff them in my pockets and take them home

for proper burial?"



"You know in spite of all the Labour Governments and strange doings in

Parliament, there are still pretty strict laws against poaching."



"Poaching, guvner? I wouldnt poach. I respect what's yours, just as I

respect what's my own. Trespassing maybe. I likes to look at a little

bit of sky or hear a meadowlark or smell a flower or two, but

poaching--! Really, guvner, you hadnt ought to take away a man's

character."



I thought it a shame so sturdy and amusing a fellow should have to eke

out his living so precariously. "I'll tell you what I'll do," I said.

"I'll give you a note right now to my head gamekeeper and have him put

you on as an assistant. Thirty shillings a week I think it pays."



"Well, now, thank you, guvner, but really, I don't want it. Thirty bob a

week! What should I do with it? Nothing but go down to the Holly Tree

and get drunk every night. I'm much better off as I am--total

abstinence, in a manner of speaking. No, no, guvner, I appreciate your

big heart, but I'm happy with my little bit of fish and a rabbit in the

pot--why should I set up to be an honest workingman and get dissatisfied

with my life?"



His refusal of my wellintentioned offer did not irk me. In a large and

tolerant view you could almost say we were both parasites upon The Ivies

and it would not hurt me if he stole a little of my game to keep himself

alive. I gave him a note to protect him against any of the keepers who

might come upon him as I had, and we parted with mutual liking; I

remembering for my part that I was an American and all men, poacher and

landlord alike, were created equal, no matter how far each had come from

his beginnings.





80. Shortly after, Miss Francis ended her long sojourn at Mount

Whitney and returned to England. The ordeal of living surrounded by the

Grass, which had destroyed her assistants, seemed to have made no other

change in her than the fading of her hair, which was now completely

white, and a loss of weight, giving her a deceptive appearance of

fragility at variance with the forthrightness of her manner.



I put down her immunity to agoraphobia as just another evidence that she

was already mad. Her refusal to accept the limitations of her sex and

her complete indifference to our respective stations were mere

confirmations. With her usual disregard of realities she assumed I would

go on financing her indefinitely in spite of the hundreds of thousands

of pounds I had paid out without visible result.



"Ive really got it now, Weener," she assured me in a tone hardly

befitting a suppliant for funds. "In spite of the incompetents you kept

sending, in spite of mistakes and blind alleys, the work on Whitney is

done--and successfully. The rest is routine laboratory work--a matter of

quantities and methods of application."



"I don't know that I can spare you any more money, Miss Francis."



She laughed. "What the devil's the matter with you, Weener? Are your

millions melting away? Or do you think any of the spies you set on me

capable of carrying on--or are you just trying to crack the whip?"



"I set no spies and I have no whip. I merely feel it may not be

profitable to waste any more money on fruitless experiments."



She snorted. "Time has streamlined and inflated your platitudes. When I

am too old to work and ready for euthanasia I shall have you come and

talk me to death. To hear you one would almost think you had no interest

in finding a method to counter the Grass."



Her egomania and impertinence were really insufferable; her notion of

her own importance was ludicrous.



"Interested or not, I have no reason to believe you alone are capable of

scientific discovery. Anyway, the world seems pretty well off as it is."



She tugged at her hair as if it were false and would come off if she

jerked hard enough. "Of course it's well enough off from your

pointofview. It offers you more food than you could eat if you had a

million bellies, more clothes than you could wear out in a million

years, more houses than you could live in if the million contradictions

which go to make up any single human were suddenly made corporeal. Of

course youre satisfied; why shouldnt you be? If the Grass were to be

pushed back and the world once more enlarged, if hope and

dissatisfaction were again to replace despair and content, you might not

find yourself such a big toad in a small puddle--and you wouldnt like

that, would you?"



I had intended all along to give her a small pension to keep her from

want and allow her to putter around, but her irrational accusations and

insults only showed her to be the kind from whom no gratitude could be

expected.



"I'm afraid we can be of no further use to each other."



"Look here, Weener, you can't do this. The life of civilization depends

on countering the Grass. Don't tell me the world can go on only half

alive. Look around you and notice the recession every day. Outside of

your own subservient laboratories what scientific work is being done?

Since Palomar and Mount Wilson and Flagstaff went what has happened in

astronomy? If you pick up the shrunken pages of your Times or

Tatler, do you wonder at the reason for their shrinkage or do you

realize there are fewer literates in the world than there were ten years

ago?



"The Americas were upstart continents, werent they? I am not speaking

sarcastically, my point is not a chauvinistic one, not even

hemispherically prideful. And the Old World the womb of culture? But how

much culture has that womb borne since the Americas disappeared? Without

a doubt there are exactly the same number of composers and painters,

writers and sculptors alive on the four continents today as there were

when there were six, but in this drowsy halfworld how many books of

importance are being produced?"



"There are plenty of books already in existence; besides, those things

go by cycles."



"God give me patience; this is the man who has humanity prostrate."



"Humanity seems quite content in the position you ascribe to it."



"Of course, of course--that's the tragedy. It's content the same way a

man who has just had his legs cut off is content; suffering from shock

and loss of blood he enters a merciful coma from which he may never

emerge. The legs do not write the books or think the thoughts, whether

these activities wait for the cyclical momen