I'm
positive, I'm literal. I know exactly what I want. I want to concern
myself with what lies under my hand. I want to be allowed to get on
with my work. I want to bring old Perrelli up to date."
"My dear fellow! We all love you for that. And I am delighted to think
you are not really clean-minded, in spite of all these lofty
protestations. Because you aren't, are you?"
If, after such discourse, the bibliographer still remained mulishly
clean-minded, Keith would return to the psychological necessity of
"appropriate reaction" and cite an endless list of sovereigns, popes,
and other heroes who, in their moments of leisure, were wise enough to
react against the persistent strain of purity. Then, via Alexander of
Macedon, "one of the greatest sons of earth," as Bishop Thirlwall had
called him--Alexander, with whose deplorable capacity for "unbending" a
scholar like Eames was perfectly familiar--he would switch the
conversation into realms of military science, and begin to expatiate
upon the wonderful advance which has been made since those days in the
arts of defensive and offensive warfare--the decline of the phalanx, the
rise of artillery, the changed system of fortifications, those modern
inventions in the department of land defences, sea defences and, above
all, aerial defences, parachutes, hydroplanes.
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