Читать книгу Children of the Wind онлайн

12 страница из 58

"To this I readily agreed, since really it is an axiom; but asked him if he considered savages happier than I; to which he answered: 'No, not than you; but such as you aren't Civilized Man: you're an accident of civilization. Like you are half a million, say, in England—foreigners looking on at the forty million real English inspanned to the buck-waggon of England, dragging at the trek-tow, sweating great drops. Well, of course, that's not practical politics; that's no chop any road: Unhappy is the name of it. Hence, when the crew of the Endeavour made acquaintance with Otahito, some of 'em did a bunk, thinking: "No more England for us." But when I say that the savage is "ahead," don't take me for a fool. Here is a river, the river of life'—he drew it in pencil on the table-cloth—'and here is the sea to the East. Let the sea represent Happiness, Bliss and no end. Well, the river runs East to A, and at A is the savage; but then it winds back West toward B, and between A and B is the civilized: evidently A is nearer the sea, and so ahead of B, but B is further on nearer bliss, and so ahead of A. At B, as I pan it out, the river breaks into cataracts and rapids—revolution there—civilized man grabbing the planet's crust out of the grasp of the foreign onlookers who now hold it, and thence the course toward Happiness may be rapid, and the savage soon be nowhere in comparison. The same may be true of the two minds—the conscious, and the subconscious. As life in becoming civilized, has lost something for a time, so, in becoming intelligent, it has lost something: dogs and horses are more psychic, or "sensitive," as they say, than men, and will see an apparition quicker, and black men more than white men. But maybe when the river of Mind turns again toward the sea, men may be more psychic than any dog for being more intelligent, just as they will be all the more happy for being civilized. So I pan it out. Don't look round suddenly: one of the enemy has entered—the man at the table behind that lady with the diamond spray.'