The Professor de Worms/Wilks/Friday Quotes in The Man Who Was Thursday
Every movement of the old man’s tottering figure and vague hands, every uncertain gesture and panic-stricken pause, seemed to put it beyond question that he was helpless, that he was in the last imbecility of the body. He moved by inches, he let himself down with little gasps of caution. And yet, unless the philosophical entities called time and space have no vestige even of a practical existence, it appeared quite unquestionable that he had run after the omnibus.
Syme had for a flash the sensation that the cosmos had turned exactly upside down, that all the trees were growing downwards and that all stars were under his feet. Then came slowly the opposite conviction. For the last twenty-four hours the cosmos had really been upside down, but now the capsized universe had come right side up again. The devil from whom he had been fleeing all day was only an elder brother of his own house, who on the other side of the table lay back and laughed at him.
The next instant the automobile had come with a catastrophic jar against an iron object. The instant after that four men had crawled out from under a chaos of metal, and a tall lean lamp-post that had stood up straight on the edge of the marine parade stood out, bent and twisted, like the branch of a broken tree.
“Well, we smashed something,” said the Professor, with a faint smile. “That’s some comfort.”
“You’re becoming an anarchist,” said Syme, dusting his clothes with his instinct of daintiness.
“Everyone is,” said Ratcliffe.
“I confess that I should feel a bit afraid of asking Sunday who he really is.”
“Why?” asked the Secretary; “for fear of bombs?”
“No,” said the Professor, “for fear he might tell me.”
“Have you noticed an odd thing,” he said, “about all your descriptions? Each man of you finds Sunday quite different, yet each man of you can only find one thing to compare him to—the universe itself. Bull finds him like the earth in spring, Gogol like the sun at noonday. The Secretary is reminded of the shapeless protoplasm, and the Inspector of the carelessness of virgin forests. The Professor says he is like a changing landscape. This is queer, but it is queerer still that I also have had my odd notion about the President, and I also find that I think of Sunday as I think of the whole world.”
The Professor de Worms/Wilks/Friday Quotes in The Man Who Was Thursday
Every movement of the old man’s tottering figure and vague hands, every uncertain gesture and panic-stricken pause, seemed to put it beyond question that he was helpless, that he was in the last imbecility of the body. He moved by inches, he let himself down with little gasps of caution. And yet, unless the philosophical entities called time and space have no vestige even of a practical existence, it appeared quite unquestionable that he had run after the omnibus.
Syme had for a flash the sensation that the cosmos had turned exactly upside down, that all the trees were growing downwards and that all stars were under his feet. Then came slowly the opposite conviction. For the last twenty-four hours the cosmos had really been upside down, but now the capsized universe had come right side up again. The devil from whom he had been fleeing all day was only an elder brother of his own house, who on the other side of the table lay back and laughed at him.
The next instant the automobile had come with a catastrophic jar against an iron object. The instant after that four men had crawled out from under a chaos of metal, and a tall lean lamp-post that had stood up straight on the edge of the marine parade stood out, bent and twisted, like the branch of a broken tree.
“Well, we smashed something,” said the Professor, with a faint smile. “That’s some comfort.”
“You’re becoming an anarchist,” said Syme, dusting his clothes with his instinct of daintiness.
“Everyone is,” said Ratcliffe.
“I confess that I should feel a bit afraid of asking Sunday who he really is.”
“Why?” asked the Secretary; “for fear of bombs?”
“No,” said the Professor, “for fear he might tell me.”
“Have you noticed an odd thing,” he said, “about all your descriptions? Each man of you finds Sunday quite different, yet each man of you can only find one thing to compare him to—the universe itself. Bull finds him like the earth in spring, Gogol like the sun at noonday. The Secretary is reminded of the shapeless protoplasm, and the Inspector of the carelessness of virgin forests. The Professor says he is like a changing landscape. This is queer, but it is queerer still that I also have had my odd notion about the President, and I also find that I think of Sunday as I think of the whole world.”
