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Last",{"slug":506,"title":507,"author":508,"year":509,"unit":65,"words":510,"chapters":511},"alices-adventures-in-wonderland","Alice's Adventures in Wonderland","Lewis Carroll",1865,26371,[512,515,518,521,524,527,530,533,536,539,542,545],{"n":4,"title":513,"words":514},"Down the Rabbit-Hole",2181,{"n":18,"title":516,"words":517},"The Pool of Tears",2093,{"n":22,"title":519,"words":520},"A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale",1694,{"n":26,"title":522,"words":523},"The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill",2607,{"n":30,"title":525,"words":526},"Advice from a Caterpillar",2180,{"n":34,"title":528,"words":529},"Pig and Pepper",2588,{"n":38,"title":531,"words":532},"A Mad Tea-Party",2282,{"n":42,"title":534,"words":535},"The Queen’s Croquet-Ground",2482,{"n":46,"title":537,"words":538},"The Mock Turtle’s Story",2266,{"n":50,"title":540,"words":541},"The Lobster Quadrille",2025,{"n":54,"title":543,"words":544},"Who Stole the Tarts?",1872,{"n":58,"title":546,"words":547},"Alice’s 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G. Wells",1895,32311,[578,581,584,587,590,593,596,599,602,605,608,611,614,617,620,623],{"n":4,"title":579,"words":580},"Introduction",1680,{"n":18,"title":582,"words":583},"The Machine",1335,{"n":22,"title":585,"words":586},"The Time Traveller Returns",1983,{"n":26,"title":588,"words":589},"Time Travelling",2086,{"n":30,"title":591,"words":592},"In the Golden Age",1653,{"n":34,"title":594,"words":595},"The Sunset of Mankind",2183,{"n":38,"title":597,"words":598},"A Sudden Shock",2321,{"n":42,"title":600,"words":601},"Explanation",4181,{"n":46,"title":603,"words":604},"The Morlocks",2154,{"n":50,"title":606,"words":607},"When Night Came",2519,{"n":54,"title":609,"words":610},"The Palace of Green Porcelain",2465,{"n":58,"title":612,"words":613},"In the Darkness",2638,{"n":105,"title":615,"words":616},"The Trap of the White Sphinx",1066,{"n":109,"title":618,"words":619},"The Further Vision",1900,{"n":112,"title":621,"words":622},"The Time Traveller’s Return",480,{"n":343,"title":624,"words":625},"After the Story",1667,{"slug":627,"title":628,"author":629,"year":630,"unit":65,"words":631,"chapters":632},"around-the-world-in-eighty-days","Around the World in Eighty Days","Jules Verne",1873,62197,[633,636,639,642,645,648,651,654,657,660,663,666,669,672,675,678,681,684,687,690,693,696,699,701,704,707,710,713,716,719,722,725,728,731,734,738,742],{"n":4,"title":634,"words":635},"In Which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout Accept Each Other, the One as Master, the Other as Man",1453,{"n":18,"title":637,"words":638},"In Which Passepartout is Convinced That He Has at Last Found His Ideal",1114,{"n":22,"title":640,"words":641},"In Which a Conversation Takes Place Which Seems Likely to Cost Phileas Fogg Dear",1991,{"n":26,"title":643,"words":644},"In Which Phileas Fogg Astounds Passepartout, His Servant",942,{"n":30,"title":646,"words":647},"In Which a New Species of Funds, Unknown to the Moneyed Men, Appears on ’change",932,{"n":34,"title":649,"words":650},"In Which Fix, the Detective, Betrays a Very Natural Impatience",1299,{"n":38,"title":652,"words":653},"Which Once More Demonstrates the Uselessness of Passports as Aids to Detectives",763,{"n":42,"title":655,"words":656},"In Which Passepartout Talks Rather More, Perhaps, Than is Prudent",1076,{"n":46,"title":658,"words":659},"In Which the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean Prove Propitious to the Designs of Phileas Fogg",1544,{"n":50,"title":661,"words":662},"In Which Passepartout is Only Too Glad to Get Off with the Loss of His Shoes",1552,{"n":54,"title":664,"words":665},"In Which Phileas Fogg Secures a Curious Means of Conveyance at a Fabulous Price",2530,{"n":58,"title":667,"words":668},"In Which Phileas Fogg and His Companions Venture Across the Indian Forests, and What Ensued",2083,{"n":105,"title":670,"words":671},"In Which Passepartout Receives a New Proof That Fortune Favors the Brave",2035,{"n":109,"title":673,"words":674},"In Which Phileas Fogg Descends the Whole Length of the Beautiful Valley of the Ganges Without Ever Thinking of Seeing It",1917,{"n":112,"title":676,"words":677},"In Which the Bag of Banknotes Disgorges Some Thousands of Pounds More",1829,{"n":343,"title":679,"words":680},"In Which Fix Does Not Seem to Understand in the Least What is Said to Him",1609,{"n":347,"title":682,"words":683},"Showing What Happened on the Voyage from Singapore to Hong Kong",1718,{"n":351,"title":685,"words":686},"In Which Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, and Fix Go Each About His Business",1340,{"n":355,"title":688,"words":689},"In Which Passepartout Takes a Too Great Interest in His Master, and What Comes of It",2060,{"n":359,"title":691,"words":692},"In Which Fix Comes Face to Face with Phileas Fogg",1740,{"n":363,"title":694,"words":695},"In Which the Master of the “tankadere” Runs Great Risk of Losing a Reward of Two Hundred Pounds",2563,{"n":367,"title":697,"words":698},"In Which Passepartout Finds Out That, Even at the Antipodes, It is Convenient to Have Some Money in One’s Pocket",2064,{"n":371,"title":700,"words":426},"In Which Passepartout’s Nose Becomes Outrageously Long",{"n":375,"title":702,"words":703},"During Which Mr. Fogg and Party Cross the Pacific Ocean",1948,{"n":379,"title":705,"words":706},"In Which a Slight Glimpse is Had of San Francisco",2002,{"n":383,"title":708,"words":709},"In Which Phileas Fogg and Party Travel by the Pacific Railroad",1605,{"n":387,"title":711,"words":712},"In Which Passepartout Undergoes, at a Speed of Twenty Miles an Hour, a Course of Mormon History",1944,{"n":479,"title":714,"words":715},"In Which Passepartout Does Not Succeed in Making Anybody Listen to Reason",2442,{"n":483,"title":717,"words":718},"In Which Certain Incidents Are Narrated Which Are Only to Be Met with on American Railroads",2124,{"n":487,"title":720,"words":721},"In Which Phileas Fogg Simply Does His Duty",2132,{"n":491,"title":723,"words":724},"In Which Fix, the Detective, Considerably Furthers the Interests of Phileas Fogg",1842,{"n":495,"title":726,"words":727},"In Which Phileas Fogg Engages in a Direct Struggle with Bad Fortune",1050,{"n":499,"title":729,"words":730},"In Which Phileas Fogg Shows Himself Equal to the Occasion",2479,{"n":503,"title":732,"words":733},"In Which Phileas Fogg at Last Reaches London",975,{"n":735,"title":736,"words":737},35,"In Which Phileas Fogg Does Not Have to Repeat His Orders to Passepartout Twice",1573,{"n":739,"title":740,"words":741},36,"In Which Phileas Fogg’s Name is Once More at a Premium on ’change",1057,{"n":743,"title":744,"words":745},37,"In Which It is Shown That Phileas Fogg Gained Nothing by His Tour Around the World, Unless It Were Happiness",938,{"n":34,"title":594,"passages":747,"rows":800,"words":595},[748,757,766,776,784,793],{"i":363,"prompt":749,"paras":750,"emb":754},"The inventor walks up a hillside at sunset followed by a few small, delicate people in tunics, past a ruined heap of granite walls overgrown with strange plants.",[751,752,753],"“A queer thing I soon discovered about my little hosts, and that was their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment, like children, but, like children they would soon stop examining me, and wander away after some other toy. The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that almost all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how speedily I came to disregard these little people. I went out through the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was satisfied. I was continually meeting more of these men of the future, who would follow me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and, having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again to my own devices.","“The calm of evening was upon the world as I emerged from the great hall, and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At first things were very confusing. Everything was so entirely different from the world I had known—even the flowers. The big building I had left was situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames had shifted, perhaps, a mile from its present position. I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest, perhaps a mile and a half away, from which I could get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One, A.D. For that, I should explain, was the date the little dials of my machine recorded.","“As I walked I was watching for every impression that could possibly help to explain the condition of ruinous splendour in which I found the world—for ruinous it was. A little way up the hill, for instance, was a great heap of granite, bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps, amidst which were thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like plants—nettles possibly—but wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and incapable of stinging. It was evidently the derelict remains of some vast structure, to what end built I could not determine. It was here that I was destined, at a later date, to have a very strange experience—the first intimation of a still stranger discovery—but of that I will speak in its proper place.",[755,756],0,40,{"i":367,"prompt":758,"paras":759,"emb":764},"The inventor rests on a terrace overlooking a lush valley of palace-like buildings, with a few small, delicate, identical-looking people in tunics following behind him.",[760,761,762,763],"“Looking round, with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested for a while, I realised that there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared.","“‘Communism,’ said I to myself.","“And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at the half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash, I perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It may seem strange, perhaps, that I had not noticed this before. But everything was so strange. Now, I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike. And the children seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents. I judged then that the children of that time were extremely precocious, physically at least, and I found afterwards abundant verification of my opinion.","“Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would expect; for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical force. Where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring are secure, there is less necessity—indeed there is no necessity—for an efficient family, and the specialisation of the sexes with reference to their children’s needs disappears. We see some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age it was complete. This, I must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was to appreciate how far it fell short of the reality.",[756,765],41,{"i":371,"prompt":767,"paras":768,"emb":773},"The inventor sits on a mossy old metal bench with griffin-head armrests on a hilltop, gazing at a flaming sunset over a river valley dotted with palaces and statues.",[769,770,771,772],"“While I was musing upon these things, my attention was attracted by a pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola. I thought in a transitory way of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings towards the top of the hill, and as my walking powers were evidently miraculous, I was presently left alone for the first time. With a strange sense of freedom and adventure I pushed on up to the crest.","“There I found a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognise, corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and half smothered in soft moss, the arm-rests cast and filed into the resemblance of griffins’ heads. I sat down on it, and I surveyed the broad view of our old world under the sunset of that long day. It was as sweet and fair a view as I have ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon and the west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames, in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel. I have already spoken of the great palaces dotted about among the variegated greenery, some in ruins and some still occupied. Here and there rose a white or silvery figure in the waste garden of the earth, here and there came the sharp vertical line of some cupola or obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs of proprietary rights, no evidences of agriculture; the whole earth had become a garden.","“So watching, I began to put my interpretation upon the things I had seen, and as it shaped itself to me that evening, my interpretation was something in this way. (Afterwards I found I had got only a half truth—or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.)","“It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first time I began to realise an odd consequence of the social effort in which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a logical consequence enough. Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions of life—the true civilising process that makes life more and more secure—had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw!",[774,775],81,53,{"i":375,"prompt":777,"paras":778,"emb":782},"The thoughtful inventor stands in a lush flowering garden full of butterflies and fruit trees, with a grand white palace in the distance, in golden evening light.",[779,780,781],"“After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of today are still in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a little department of the field of human disease, but, even so, it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture and horticulture destroy a weed just here and there and cultivate perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving the greater number to fight out a balance as they can. We improve our favourite plants and animals—and how few they are—gradually by selective breeding; now a new and better peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger flower, now a more convenient breed of cattle. We improve them gradually, because our ideals are vague and tentative, and our knowledge is very limited; because Nature, too, is shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better organised, and still better. That is the drift of the current in spite of the eddies. The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co-operating; things will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature. In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance of animal and vegetable life to suit our human needs.","“This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done well; done indeed for all Time, in the space of Time across which my machine had leapt. The air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay. And I shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes.","“Social triumphs, too, had been effected. I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged in no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the body of our world, was gone. It was natural on that golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population had ceased to increase.",[783,503],134,{"i":379,"prompt":785,"paras":786,"emb":790},"Small, delicate people in tunics lounge idly among flowers beside great crumbling palaces, watched from a hillside by a thoughtful tousled-haired inventor at dusk.",[787,788,789],"“But with this change in condition comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young. _Now_, where are these imminent dangers? There is a sentiment arising, and it will grow, against connubial jealousy, against fierce maternity, against passion of all sorts; unnecessary things now, and things that make us uncomfortable, savage survivals, discords in a refined and pleasant life.","“I thought of the physical slightness of the people, their lack of intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes Quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had used all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions.","“Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness. Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no great help—may even be hindrances—to a civilised man. And in a state of physical balance and security, power, intellectual as well as physical, would be out of place. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of war or solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to require strength of constitution, no need of toil. For such a life, what we should call the weak are as well equipped as the strong, are indeed no longer weak. Better equipped indeed they are, for the strong would be fretted by an energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived—the flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace. This has ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to eroticism, and then come languor and decay.",[791,792],168,45,{"i":383,"prompt":794,"paras":795,"emb":798},"The inventor stands on a dark hilltop as a large yellow full moon rises over a river valley, a silent owl flitting past against the silver sky.",[796,797],"“Even this artistic impetus would at last die away—had almost died in the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more. Even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and it seemed to me that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!","“As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this simple explanation I had mastered the problem of the world—mastered the whole secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough—as most wrong theories are!",[799,765],213,254,1793453960947]