To _see_ the earth whirling slowly round, coloured, its waters catching
the light. She stood in the middle of the floor hurriedly discarding her
clothes. They were old and worn, friendly and alive with the fresh
strength of her body. Other clothes would be got somehow; just by going
on and working ... there's so much--eternally. It's stupendous. I've no
right to be in it; but I'm in. Someone means me to be in. _I_ can't help
it. Fancy people being alive. You would think everyone would go mad. She
found herself in bed, sitting up in her flannellette dressing jacket.
The stagnant air beneath the sharp downward slope of the ceiling was
warmed by the gas. The gaslight glared beautifully over her shoulder
down on to the page....
11
_All_ that has been said and known in the world is in _language_, in
words; all we know of Christ is in Jewish words; all the dogmas of
religion are words; the meanings of words change with people's thoughts.
Then no one _knows_ anything for certain. Everything depends upon the
way a thing is put, and that is a question of some particular
civilisation. Culture comes through literature, which is a half-truth.
People who are not cultured are isolated in barbaric darkness. The
Greeks were cultured; but they are barbarians ... why? Whether you agree
or not, language is the only way of expressing anything and it dims
everything. So the Bible is not true; it is a culture. Religion is wrong
in making word-dogmas out of it. Christ was something. But Christianity
which calls Him divine and so on is false. It clings to words which get
more and more wrong ... then there's nothing to be afraid of and nothing
to be quite sure of rejoicing about. The Christians are irritating and
frightened. The man with side-whiskers understands something. But.
CHAPTER V
1
Then all these years they might have been going sometimes to those
lectures. Pater talking about them--telling about old Rayleigh and old
Kelvin as if they were his intimates--flinging out remarks as if he
wanted to talk and his audience were incapable of appreciation ...
light, heat, electricity, sound-waves; and _never_ saying that members
could take friends or that there were special lectures for children ...
Sir Robert Ball ... "a fascinating Irish fellow with the gift of the gab
who made a volcano an amusing reality" Krakatoa ... that year of
wonderful sunsets and afterglows ... the air half round the world, full
of fine dust ... it seemed cruel ... deprivation ... all those years;
all that wonderful knowledge just at hand. And now it was coming, the
Royal Institution ... this evening. She must find out whether one had to
dress and exactly how one got in. Albemarle Street.... It all went on in
_Albemarle_ Street.
2