a generation seraphically free From taint of personality,

You who listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think,

Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation

First-hand ideas do not really exist.

The habit was vulgar and perhaps faintly improper: it was unproductive of ideas, and had no connection with the habits that really mattered.

The first of these was the abolition of respirator.

On the surface they were revolutionary, but in either case men"s minds had been prepared beforehand, and they did but express tendencies that were latent already.

He was mad. Vashti departed, nor, in the troubles that followed, did she ever see his face again.

Because I have seen her in the twilight - because she came to my help when I called - because she, too, was entangled by the worms, and, luckier than I, was killed by one of them piercing her throat."

I prefer the mercy of God." "By that superstitious phrase, do you mean that you could live in the outer air?" "Yes." "Have you ever seen, round the vomitories, the bones of those who were extruded after the Great Rebellion?" "Yes." "Have you ever seen, round the vomitories, the bones of those who were extruded after the Great Rebellion?" "Yes." "They were left where they perished for our edification. A few crawled away, but they perished, too - who can doubt it? And so with the Homeless of our own day. The surface of the earth supports life no longer."

I woke up in this room

They were searching it in all directions, they were denuding it, and the white snouts of others peeped out of the hole, ready if needed.

(That part is too awful. It belongs to the part that you will never know.)

I had better escape to the other air, and, if I must die, die running towards the cloud that had been the colour of a pearl. I never started. Out of the shaft - it is too horrible. A worm, a long white worm, had crawled out of the shaft and gliding over the moonlit grass.

my respirator had gone.

Not until it was too late did I realize what the stoppage of the escape implied. You see - the gap in the tunnel had been mended; the Mending Apparatus; the Mending Apparatus, was after me.

As I said, I had entirely forgotten about the Machine

But she was also inquisitive.

"I had meant to tell you the rest, but I cannot: I know that I cannot: good-bye."

hat it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives in the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It was robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops - but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds - but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.

"I don"t think this is interesting you. The rest will interest you even less. There are no ideas in it, and I wish that I had not troubled you to come. We are too different, mother." She told him to continue.

If he did not die today he would die tomorrow. There was not room for such a person in the world.

So I jumped

I was getting beyond its power. Then I thought: “This silence means that I am doing wrong.

rough edges cut through my gloves so that my hands bled.

I felt that humanity existed, and that it existed without clothes. How can I possibly explain this? It was naked, humanity seemed naked, and all these tubes and buttons and machineries neither came into the world with us, nor will they follow us out, nor do they matter supremely while we are here.

the spirits of the dead comforted me. I don"t know what I mean by that. I just say what I felt.

hold the pillow of my bed outstretched for many minutes.

You are throwing civilization away.

For Kuno had lately asked to be a father, and his request had been refused by the Committee. His was not a type that the Machine desired to hand on.

I did not fear that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed. I feared something far more intangible-doing what was not contemplated by the Machine.

did traces of them remain?

I began by walking up and down the platform of the railway outside my room. Up and down, until I was tired

"You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say “space is annihilated”, but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have lost a part of ourselves.

In the dawn of the world our weakly must be exposed on Mount Taygetus, in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress eternally.

By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed.

"Well, the Book"s wrong, for I have been out on my feet."

I am most advanced. I don"t think you irreligious, for there is no such thing as religion left. All the fear and the superstition that existed once have been destroyed by the Machine

"You are beginning to worship the Machine," he said coldly. "You think it irreligious of me to have found out a way of my own

"I did not get an Egression-permit." "Then how did you get out?" "I found out a way of my own."

Homelessness means death. The victim is exposed to the air, which kills him.

"I have been threatened with Homelessness," said Kuno.

greatly retarded the development of my soul.

She was too well-bred to shake him by the hand.

which exactly resembled her own

He had been sent to Sumatra for the purpose of propagating the race

The passengers sat each in his cabin, avoiding one another with an almost physical repulsion and longing to be once more under the surface of the earth.

"Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas."

"You must excuse my common way of speaking. I have got into the habit of calling places over which I pass by their unmechanical names."

People were almost exactly alike all over the world, but the attendant of the air-ship, perhaps owing to her exceptional duties, had grown a little out of the common. She had often to address passengers with direct speech, and this had given her a certain roughness and originality of manner. When Vashti served away form the sunbeams with a cry, she behaved barbarically - she put out her hand to steady her. "How dare you!" exclaimed the passenger. "You forget yourself!"

It was the last time that men were compacted by thinking of a power outside the world

punishable by Homelessness.

those who were civilized and refined

When the air-ships had been built, the desire to look direct at things still lingered in the world

phosphorescence

"O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book

in each room there sat a human being, eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas

rooms, tier below tier, reaching far into the earth

but she was expected to walk from it to her cabin. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the best.

There was even a female attendant

Vashti treading on the pages as she did so.

some one actually said with direct utterance

The man in front dropped his Book - no great matter, but it disquieted them all. In the rooms, if the Book was dropped, the floor raised it mechanically, but the gangway to the air-ship was not so prepared, and the sacred volume lay motionless

cinematophote

flank of the ship, stained with exposure to the outer air, her horror of direct experience returned

old literature, with its praise of Nature, and its fear of Nature

. Night and day, wind and storm, tide and earthquake, impeded man no longer.

Christchurch (I use the antique names)

the first fellow creature she had seen face to face for months

tottered into the lift

True, but there was something special about Kuno

But she thought of Kuno as a baby, his birth, his removal to the public nurseries, her own visit to him there, his visits to her-visits which stopped when the Machine had assigned him a room on the other side of the earth. "Parents, duties of," said the book of the Machine," cease at the moment of birth. P.422327483."

"I will not tell you through the Machine."

So the human passions still blundered up and down in the Machine

Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again

since her last child was born

long before the universal establishment of the Machine

an unfamiliar button. The wall swung apart slowly. Through the opening she saw a tunnel that curved slightly, so that its goal was not visible. Should she go to see her son, here was the beginning of the journey

palpitating

invisible sun

exchanged ideas with her friends

"O Machine!" and raised the volume to her lips. Thrice she kissed it, thrice inclined her head, thrice she felt the delirium of acquiescence. Her ritual performed, she turned to page 1367,

dyspeptic

survival from the ages of litter-one book. This was the Book of the Machine

under the ground

Complaint was useless, for beds were of the same dimension all over the world, and to have had an alternative size would have involved vast alterations in the Machine.

Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea;

The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well.

THE MACHINE STOPS by E.M. Forster (1909) ITHE AIR-SHIP Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk-that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh-a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs. An electric bell rang. The woman touched a switch and the music was silent. "I suppose I must see who it is", she thought, and set her chair in motion. The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery and it rolled her to the other side of the room where the bell still rang importunately. "Who is it?" she called. Her voice was irritable, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously. But when she listened into the receiver, her white face wrinkled into smiles, and she said: "Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes-for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must deliver my lecture on “Music during the Australian Period”." She touched the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to her. Then she touched the lighting apparatus, and the little room was plunged into darkness. "Be quick!" She called, her irritation returning. "Be quick, Kuno; here I am in the dark wasting my time." But it was fully fifteen seconds before the round plate that she held in her hands began to glow. A faint blue light shot across it, darkening to purple, and presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her. "Kuno, how slow you are." He smiled gravely. "I really believe you enjoy dawdling." "I have called you before, mother, but you were always busy or isolated. I have something particular to say." "What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not send it by pneumatic post?" "Because I prefer saying such a thing. I want----" "Well?" "I want you to come and see me." Vashti watched his face in the blue plate. "But I can see you!" she exclaimed. "What more do you want?" "I want to see you not through the Machine," said Kuno. "I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine." "Oh, hush!" said his mother, vaguely shocked. "You mustn"t say anything against the Machine." "Why not?" "One mustn"t." "You talk as if a god had made the Machine," cried the other. "I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is not everything. I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come. Pay me a visit, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind." She replied that she could scarcely spare the time for a visit. "The air-ship barely takes two days to fly between me and you." "I dislike air-ships." "Why?" "I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air- ship." "I do not get them anywhere else." "What kind of ideas can the air give you?" He paused for an instant. "Do you not know four big stars that form an oblong, and three stars close together in the middle of the oblong, and hanging from these stars, three other stars?" "No, I do not. I dislike the stars. But did they give you an idea? How interesting; tell me." "I had an idea that they were like a man." "I do not understand." "The four big stars are the man"s shoulders and his knees. The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three stars hanging are like a sword." "A sword?;" "Men carried swords about with them, to kill animals and other men." "It does not strike me as a very good idea, but it is certainly original. When did it come to you first?" "In the air-ship-----" He broke off, and she fancied that he looked sad. She could not be sure, for the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression. It only gave a general idea of people - an idea that was good enough for all practical purposes, Vashti thought. The imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine, just as the imponderable bloom of the grape was ignored by the manufacturers of artificial fruit. Something "good enough" had long since been accepted by our race. "The truth is," he continued, "that I want to see these stars again. They are curious stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth." She was shocked again. "Mother, you must come, if only to explain to me what is the harm of visiting the surface of the earth." "No harm," she replied, controlling herself. "But no advantage. The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no advantage. The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no life remains on it, and you would need a respirator, or the cold of the outer air would kill you. One dies immediately in the outer air." "I know; of course I shall take all precautions." "And besides----" "Well?" She considered, and chose her words with care. Her son had a queer temper, and she wished to dissuade him from the expedition. "It is contrary to the spirit of the age," she asserted. "Do you mean by that, contrary to the Machine?" "In a sense, but----" His image is the blue plate faded. "Kuno!" He had isolated himself. For a moment Vashti felt lonely. Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere - buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world. Vashanti"s next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one"s own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date? - say this day month. To most of these questions she replied with irritation - a growing quality in that accelerated age.

Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date?

Has she had any ideas lately?

The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.

warm deodorized liquid

(imitation) marble

the Machine

"It is contrary to the spirit of the age," she asserted. "Do you mean by that, contrary to the Machine?"

no life remains on it, and you would need a respirator, or the cold of the outer air would kill you. One dies immediately in the outer air."

I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth." She was shocked again.

. Something "good enough" had long since been accepted by our race.

manufacturers of artificial fruit

the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression. It only gave a general idea of people

The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three stars hanging are like a sword."

"I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air- ship." "I do not get them anywhere else."

air-ship

"I want to see you not through the Machine," said Kuno. "I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine."

Vashti

pneumatic post

plate

I must deliver my lecture

She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.

The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery and it rolled her

only implement whatever decisions the community as a whole directed them to

The annihilation of the character, thus, is total.

the sexual nature of Mr. Bungle's crime provoked such powerful feelings,

this disembodied enactment of life's most body-centered activity is to risk the realization that when it comes to sex, perhaps the body in question is not the physical one at all, but its psychic double, the bodylike self-representation we carry around in our heads.

tears were streaming down her face—a real-life fact that should suffice to prove that the words' emotional content was no mere playacting.

kind of slow-crawling script, lines of dialogue and stage direction creeping steadily up your computer screen.

middlingly complex database,

violation of LambdaMOO's communal spirit

mild addiction to the semifictional digital otherworlds known around the Internet as multi-user dimensions, or MUDs.

Quite the opposite, in fact: the more seriously I took the notion of virtual rape, the less seriously I was able to take the notion of freedom of speech, with its tidy division of the world into the symbolic and the real.

likely to survive intact

the commands you type into a computer are a kind of speech that doesn't so much communicate as make things happen

the room description always tells me Dr. Jest is present but asleep, in the conventional depiction for disconnected characters. The not-quite-emptiness of the abandoned room invariably instills in me an uncomfortable mix of melancholy and the creeps

I stick around only on the off chance that Dr. Jest will wake up, say hello, and share his understanding of the future with me.

a house I came for a time to think of as my second home.

a house I came for a time to think of as my second home.