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'As a matter of fact even St. Francis is a little too grown up for you. Children don't lick
lepers. Only sexually perverted adolescents do that. St. Hugh of Lincoln, that's who you
are, Burlap. He was a child, you know, a pure sweet chee-yild. Such a dear snuggly-
wuggly, lovey-dovey little chap. So wide-eyed and reverent towards the women, as
though they were all madonnas. Coming to be petted and have his pains kissed away and
be told about poor Jesus--even to have a swig of milk if there happened to be any going.'
'Really! ' Burlap protested.
'Yes, really,' Rampion mimicked. He liked baiting the fellow, making him look
like a forgiving Christian martyr. Serve him right for coming in that beloveddisciple
attitude and being so disgustingly reverential and admiring.
'Toddling wide-eyed little St. Hugh. Toddling up to the women so reverently, as
though they were all madonnas. But putting his dear little hand under their skirts all the
same. Coming to pray, but staying to share madonnina's bed.' Rampion knew a good deal
about Burlap's amorous affairs and had guessed more. 'Dear little St. Hugh! How prettily
he toddles to the bedroom, and what a darling babyish way he has of snuggling down
between the sheets! This sort of thing is much too gross and unspiritual for our little
Hughie.' He threw back his head and laughed.
'Go on, go on,' said Burlap. 'Don't mind me.' And at the sight of his martyred,
spiritual smile, Rampion laughed yet louder.
'Oh dear, oh dear!' he gasped. 'Next time you come, I'll have a copy of Ary
Scheffer's "St. Monica and St. Augustine" for you. That ought to make you really happy.
Would you like to see some of my drawings?' he asked in another tone. Burlap nodded.
'They're grotesques mostly. Caricatures. Rather ribald, I warn you. But if you _will_
come to look at my work, you must expect what you get.'
He opened a portfolio that was lying on the table.
'Why do you imagine I don't like your work?' asked Burlap. 'After all, you're a
believer in life and so am I. We have our differences; but on most matters our point of
view's the same.'
Rampion looked up at him. 'Oh, I'm sure it is, I know it is,' he said, and grinned.
'Well, if you know it's the same,' said Burlap, whose averted eyes had not seen the
grin on the other's face, 'why do you imagine I'll disapprove of your drawings?'
'Why indeed? ' the other mocked.
'Seeing that the point of view's the same...'
'It's obvious that the people looking at the view from the same point must be
identical.' Rampion grinned again. 'Q. E. D.' He turned away again to take out one of the
drawings. 'This is what I call "Fossils of the Past and Fossils of the Future."' He handed
Burlap the drawing. It was in ink touched with coloured washes, extraordinarily brilliant
and lively. Curving in a magnificently sweeping S, a grotesque procession of monsters
marched diagonally down and across the paper. Dinosaurs, pterodactyls, titanotheriums,
diplodocuses, ichthyosauruses walked, swam or flew at the tail of the procession; the van
was composed of human monsters, huge-headed creatures, without limbs or bodies,
creeping slug-like on vaguely slimy extensions of chin and neck. The faces were mostly
those of eminent contemporaries. Among the crowd Burlap recognized J. J. Thomson and
Lord Edward Tantamount, Bernard Shaw, attended by eunuchs and spinsters, and Sir
Oliver Lodge, attended by a sheeted and turnipheaded ghost and a walking cathode tube,
Sir, Alfred Mond and the head of John D. Rockefeller carried on a charger by a Baptist
clergyman, Dr. Frank Crane and Mrs. Eddy wearing haloes, and many others.
'The lizards died of having too much body and too little head,' said Rampion in
explanation.'so at least the scientists are never tired of telling us. Physical size is a
handicap after a certain point. But what about mental size? These fools seem to forget
that they're just as top-heavy and clumsy and disproportioned as any diplodocus.
Sacrificing physical life and affective life to mental life. What do they imagine's going to
happen?'
Burlap nodded his agreement. 'That's what I've always asked. Man can't live
without a heart.'
'Not to mention bowels and skin and bones and flesh,' said Rampion. 'They're just
marching towards extinction. And a damned good thing too. Only the trouble is that
they're marching the rest of the world along with them. Blast their eyes! I must say, I
resent being condemned to extinction because these imbeciles of scientists and moralists
and spiritualists and technicians and literary and political uplifters and all the rest of them
haven't the sense to see that man must live as a man, not as a monster of conscious
braininess and soulfulness. Grr! I'd like to kill the lot of them.' He put the drawing back
into the portfolio and extracted another. 'Here are two Outlines of History, the one on the
left according to H. G. Wells, the one on the right according to me....'
Burlap looked, smiled, laughed outright. 'Excellent!' he said. The drawing on the
left was composed on the lines of a simple crescendo. A very small monkey was
succeeded by a very slightly larger pithecanthropus, which was succeeded in its turn by a
slightly larger Neanderthal man. Paleolithic man, neolithic man, bronze-age Egyptian and
Babylonian man, iron-age Greek and Roman man--the figures slowly increased in size.
By the time Galileo and Newton had appeared on the scene, humanity had grown to quite
respectable dimensions. The crescendo continued' uninterrupted through Watt and
Stephenson, Faraday and Darwin, Bessemer and Edison, Rockefeller and Wanamaker, to
come to a contemporary consummation in the figures of Mr. H. G. Wells himself and Sir
Alfred Mond. Nor was the future neglected. Through the radiant mist of prophecy the
forms of Wells and Mond, growing larger and larger at every repetition, wound away in a
triumphant spiral clean off the paper, towards Utopian infinity The drawing on the right
had a less optimistic composition of peaks and declines. The small monkey very soon
blossomed into a good-sized bronze-age man, who gave place to a very large Greek and a
scarcely smaller Etruscan. The Romans grew smaller again. The monks of the Thebaid
were hardly distinguishable from the primeval little monkeys. There followed a number
of good-sized Florentines, English, French. They were succeeded by revolting monsters
labelled Calvin and Knox, Baxter and Wesley. The stature of the representative men
declined. The Victorians had begun to be dwarfish and misshapen. Their twentieth-
century successors were abortions. Through the mists of the future one could see a
diminishing company of little gargoyles and foetuses with heads too large for their
squelchy bodies, the tails of apes and the faces of our most eminent contemporaries, all
biting and scratching and disembowelling one another with that methodical and
systematic energy which belongs only to the very highly civilized.
'I'd like to have one or two of these for the _World_,' said Burlap, when they had
looked through the contents of the portfolio. 'We don't generally reproduce drawings.
We're frankly missionaries, not an art for art concern. But these things of yours are
parables as well as pictures. I must say,' he added, 'I envy you your power of saying
things so immediately and economically. It would take me hundreds and thousands of
words to say the same things less vividly in an essay.'
Rampion nodded. 'That's why I've almost given up writing for the moment.
Writing's not much good for saying what I find I want to say now. And what a comfort to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl freetocraft.keep.pl
'As a matter of fact even St. Francis is a little too grown up for you. Children don't lick
lepers. Only sexually perverted adolescents do that. St. Hugh of Lincoln, that's who you
are, Burlap. He was a child, you know, a pure sweet chee-yild. Such a dear snuggly-
wuggly, lovey-dovey little chap. So wide-eyed and reverent towards the women, as
though they were all madonnas. Coming to be petted and have his pains kissed away and
be told about poor Jesus--even to have a swig of milk if there happened to be any going.'
'Really! ' Burlap protested.
'Yes, really,' Rampion mimicked. He liked baiting the fellow, making him look
like a forgiving Christian martyr. Serve him right for coming in that beloveddisciple
attitude and being so disgustingly reverential and admiring.
'Toddling wide-eyed little St. Hugh. Toddling up to the women so reverently, as
though they were all madonnas. But putting his dear little hand under their skirts all the
same. Coming to pray, but staying to share madonnina's bed.' Rampion knew a good deal
about Burlap's amorous affairs and had guessed more. 'Dear little St. Hugh! How prettily
he toddles to the bedroom, and what a darling babyish way he has of snuggling down
between the sheets! This sort of thing is much too gross and unspiritual for our little
Hughie.' He threw back his head and laughed.
'Go on, go on,' said Burlap. 'Don't mind me.' And at the sight of his martyred,
spiritual smile, Rampion laughed yet louder.
'Oh dear, oh dear!' he gasped. 'Next time you come, I'll have a copy of Ary
Scheffer's "St. Monica and St. Augustine" for you. That ought to make you really happy.
Would you like to see some of my drawings?' he asked in another tone. Burlap nodded.
'They're grotesques mostly. Caricatures. Rather ribald, I warn you. But if you _will_
come to look at my work, you must expect what you get.'
He opened a portfolio that was lying on the table.
'Why do you imagine I don't like your work?' asked Burlap. 'After all, you're a
believer in life and so am I. We have our differences; but on most matters our point of
view's the same.'
Rampion looked up at him. 'Oh, I'm sure it is, I know it is,' he said, and grinned.
'Well, if you know it's the same,' said Burlap, whose averted eyes had not seen the
grin on the other's face, 'why do you imagine I'll disapprove of your drawings?'
'Why indeed? ' the other mocked.
'Seeing that the point of view's the same...'
'It's obvious that the people looking at the view from the same point must be
identical.' Rampion grinned again. 'Q. E. D.' He turned away again to take out one of the
drawings. 'This is what I call "Fossils of the Past and Fossils of the Future."' He handed
Burlap the drawing. It was in ink touched with coloured washes, extraordinarily brilliant
and lively. Curving in a magnificently sweeping S, a grotesque procession of monsters
marched diagonally down and across the paper. Dinosaurs, pterodactyls, titanotheriums,
diplodocuses, ichthyosauruses walked, swam or flew at the tail of the procession; the van
was composed of human monsters, huge-headed creatures, without limbs or bodies,
creeping slug-like on vaguely slimy extensions of chin and neck. The faces were mostly
those of eminent contemporaries. Among the crowd Burlap recognized J. J. Thomson and
Lord Edward Tantamount, Bernard Shaw, attended by eunuchs and spinsters, and Sir
Oliver Lodge, attended by a sheeted and turnipheaded ghost and a walking cathode tube,
Sir, Alfred Mond and the head of John D. Rockefeller carried on a charger by a Baptist
clergyman, Dr. Frank Crane and Mrs. Eddy wearing haloes, and many others.
'The lizards died of having too much body and too little head,' said Rampion in
explanation.'so at least the scientists are never tired of telling us. Physical size is a
handicap after a certain point. But what about mental size? These fools seem to forget
that they're just as top-heavy and clumsy and disproportioned as any diplodocus.
Sacrificing physical life and affective life to mental life. What do they imagine's going to
happen?'
Burlap nodded his agreement. 'That's what I've always asked. Man can't live
without a heart.'
'Not to mention bowels and skin and bones and flesh,' said Rampion. 'They're just
marching towards extinction. And a damned good thing too. Only the trouble is that
they're marching the rest of the world along with them. Blast their eyes! I must say, I
resent being condemned to extinction because these imbeciles of scientists and moralists
and spiritualists and technicians and literary and political uplifters and all the rest of them
haven't the sense to see that man must live as a man, not as a monster of conscious
braininess and soulfulness. Grr! I'd like to kill the lot of them.' He put the drawing back
into the portfolio and extracted another. 'Here are two Outlines of History, the one on the
left according to H. G. Wells, the one on the right according to me....'
Burlap looked, smiled, laughed outright. 'Excellent!' he said. The drawing on the
left was composed on the lines of a simple crescendo. A very small monkey was
succeeded by a very slightly larger pithecanthropus, which was succeeded in its turn by a
slightly larger Neanderthal man. Paleolithic man, neolithic man, bronze-age Egyptian and
Babylonian man, iron-age Greek and Roman man--the figures slowly increased in size.
By the time Galileo and Newton had appeared on the scene, humanity had grown to quite
respectable dimensions. The crescendo continued' uninterrupted through Watt and
Stephenson, Faraday and Darwin, Bessemer and Edison, Rockefeller and Wanamaker, to
come to a contemporary consummation in the figures of Mr. H. G. Wells himself and Sir
Alfred Mond. Nor was the future neglected. Through the radiant mist of prophecy the
forms of Wells and Mond, growing larger and larger at every repetition, wound away in a
triumphant spiral clean off the paper, towards Utopian infinity The drawing on the right
had a less optimistic composition of peaks and declines. The small monkey very soon
blossomed into a good-sized bronze-age man, who gave place to a very large Greek and a
scarcely smaller Etruscan. The Romans grew smaller again. The monks of the Thebaid
were hardly distinguishable from the primeval little monkeys. There followed a number
of good-sized Florentines, English, French. They were succeeded by revolting monsters
labelled Calvin and Knox, Baxter and Wesley. The stature of the representative men
declined. The Victorians had begun to be dwarfish and misshapen. Their twentieth-
century successors were abortions. Through the mists of the future one could see a
diminishing company of little gargoyles and foetuses with heads too large for their
squelchy bodies, the tails of apes and the faces of our most eminent contemporaries, all
biting and scratching and disembowelling one another with that methodical and
systematic energy which belongs only to the very highly civilized.
'I'd like to have one or two of these for the _World_,' said Burlap, when they had
looked through the contents of the portfolio. 'We don't generally reproduce drawings.
We're frankly missionaries, not an art for art concern. But these things of yours are
parables as well as pictures. I must say,' he added, 'I envy you your power of saying
things so immediately and economically. It would take me hundreds and thousands of
words to say the same things less vividly in an essay.'
Rampion nodded. 'That's why I've almost given up writing for the moment.
Writing's not much good for saying what I find I want to say now. And what a comfort to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]