Lost trumpet
(138)
Download files
Complete book:
Individual page:
Thumbnail gallery: Grid view | List view
THE LOST TRUMPET
I38
Pelagueya capped this : “And, providing there is
a Good Life, and it may be attained—why anyone
should want to attain it, or go on living it once
attained ?”
He looked, justifiably, considerably surprised.
We sat and regarded him with some amuse¬
ment. “Sure you haven’t both been out in the
sun ?”
“Both of us have been,” said Pelagueya. “At
least, such times as we weren’t underground—”
and she proceeded to relate, with unswerving fidelity
to detail, her eyes on the quietened expectation of
the garden, the horror-sights I had shown her that
day. Adrian, after the first few sentences, had sat
rigid. As her recital went on he relaxed, and as she
stopped he grinned sardonically, and then, looking
at neither of us, began to answer, apparently at
random :
“Seven thousand years ago, say the Diffusionist
anthropologists, man was a sane and happy animal.
There were no gods, no magics, no mystic hates or
hopes ; no patriotisms, no clothes, no communists
—no princesses and no Saloneys. There were no
savages and no pacifists, no tabus, no culture and
no cruelty.” He waved his hand over the garden-
wall. “And then an accident away to the south there
brought about the beginnings of agriculture and the
beginnings of civilization ; an accident, mind you,
no innate urge in human nature. From that acci¬
dental starting point it spread abroad the planet and
has ever since spread and grown and bloated, fungoid
I38
Pelagueya capped this : “And, providing there is
a Good Life, and it may be attained—why anyone
should want to attain it, or go on living it once
attained ?”
He looked, justifiably, considerably surprised.
We sat and regarded him with some amuse¬
ment. “Sure you haven’t both been out in the
sun ?”
“Both of us have been,” said Pelagueya. “At
least, such times as we weren’t underground—”
and she proceeded to relate, with unswerving fidelity
to detail, her eyes on the quietened expectation of
the garden, the horror-sights I had shown her that
day. Adrian, after the first few sentences, had sat
rigid. As her recital went on he relaxed, and as she
stopped he grinned sardonically, and then, looking
at neither of us, began to answer, apparently at
random :
“Seven thousand years ago, say the Diffusionist
anthropologists, man was a sane and happy animal.
There were no gods, no magics, no mystic hates or
hopes ; no patriotisms, no clothes, no communists
—no princesses and no Saloneys. There were no
savages and no pacifists, no tabus, no culture and
no cruelty.” He waved his hand over the garden-
wall. “And then an accident away to the south there
brought about the beginnings of agriculture and the
beginnings of civilization ; an accident, mind you,
no innate urge in human nature. From that acci¬
dental starting point it spread abroad the planet and
has ever since spread and grown and bloated, fungoid
Set display mode to:
Universal Viewer | 
Mirador |
Large image | Transcription
Images and transcriptions on this page, including medium image downloads, may be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence unless otherwise stated. 
| The books of Lewis Grassic Gibbon > Lost trumpet > (138) |
|---|
| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/205191271 |
|---|
| Description | J. Leslie Mitchell. |
|---|---|
| Shelfmark | Vts.143.j.8 |
| Attribution and copyright: |
|
More information
|
|
| Description | Sixteen books written by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1901-1935), regarded as the most important Scottish prose writer of the early 20th century. All were published in the last seven years of his life, mostly under his real name, James Leslie Mitchell. They include two works of science fiction, non-fiction works on exploration, short stories set in Egypt, a novel about Spartacus, and the classic 'Scots Quair' trilogy which includes 'Sunset Song'. Mitchell's first book 'Hanno, or the future of exploration' (1928) is rare and has never been republished. |
|---|---|
| Additional NLS resources: |
|