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The Ending Of War | H. G. [Herbert George] Wells | |
Section 2 |
Page 5 of 6 |
He reflected. 'No,' he said. Firmin cleared his throat. 'I don't think you are, sir,' he said. 'You prefer----' He stopped short. He had been going to say 'talking.' He substituted 'ideas.' 'That world of royalty!' the king went on. 'In a little while no one will understand it any more. It will become a riddle.... 'Among other things, it was a world of perpetual best clothes. Everything was in its best clothes for us, and usually wearing bunting. With a cinema watching to see we took it properly. If you are a king, Firmin, and you go and look at a regiment, it instantly stops whatever it is doing, changes into full uniform and presents arms. When my august parents went in a train the coal in the tender used to be whitened. It did, Firmin, and if coal had been white instead of black I have no doubt the authorities would have blackened it. That was the spirit of our treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to us. One never saw anything in profile. One got an impression of a world that was insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began to poke my little questions into the Lord Chancellor and the archbishop and all the rest of them, about what I should see if people turned round, the general effect I produced was that I wasn't by any means displaying the Royal Tact they had expected of me....' He meditated for a time. |
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The World Set Free H. G. [Herbert George] Wells |
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