I can see them
doing _Othello_ with their cheap ermine, bad jewellery and impossible
wigs. I expect Othello's black came off as he got hotter and hotter;
and the Rev. I. R. Glass on "Fools".... There'd be all the cheap
morality--"It's better, my young friends, to be good than to be bad.
It pays better in the end"--and there'd be little stories, sentimental
some of them and humorous some of them. There'd be a general titter
of laughter at the humorous ones.... And the carbon prints, the
"Ruysdael" always pointed out to visitors ... and after the war it
will all be going on again. At Polchester, too, they'll be having
cheap lectures in the Town-Hall and Shakespeare Readings and
High-School Prize-givings.... _Where's_ the Connexion between That and
This? _Where's_ the permanent thing in us that goes on whatever life
may do to us? Is life still beautiful and noble in spite of whatever
man may do with it, or is Semyonov right and there is no meaning in my
love for Marie, nothing real and true except the things we see with
our eyes, hear with our ears? Is Semyonov right, or are Nikitin,
Andrey Vassilievitch and I?.
Pages:
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433