The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions Read Online Free Page A

sleeping wife.
    He rose with quietness, being minded to let her sleep until he had got the fire going again. Presently he had a pannikin of steaming tea ready for her, and he went across to wake her; but she waked not, being at that time chased by a chubby baby-boy in the Valley of Lost Children.

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    Date 1965: Modern Warfare
    [Extract from the “Phono-Graphic.”]

    T he new war machine, coming as it has so promptly after the remarkable speech by Mr. John Russell, M.P., in the House on the 20th of last month, will find the narrow path of Public Opinion paved for its way into actual use.
    As Mr. Russell put the matter:—
    “A crisis has come which must be faced. The modern fighting-man, soldier, butcher, call him what you will, has made definite representations that he must know in what way he benefits the community at large, by killing or being killed in the gigantic butcheries which follow in the wake of certain political ‘talkee-talkees.’ In fact, like the prisoners of last century, if he must tread the mill—in his case the mill of death—he is desirous of knowing that it is doing some actual work. He has become an individual, thinking unit—a unit capable of using the brain of which he is possessed. He has risen above the semi-hysterical fervour of the ignoramus of half a century ago, who went forth to kill, with the feeling that he was engaged in a glorious—nay, the most glorious vocation to which man can be called: a state of mind which was carefully fostered by men of higher attainments; though not always of higher intellect. These latter put forward in favour of the profession of human butcher, that the said butchery of their fellows, as the running of the same risk, were the best means of developing all that is highest and most heroic in man. We of this age ‘ha’e oor doots;’ though, even now, there be some who still swear by the ancient belief, pointing to the Nations of the Classics, and showing that when they ceased to be soldiers they fell from the heights they had gained by arms, and became soft of fibre and heart. To the first of these I would reply that in these days of high national intellectuality we are realizing that the killing of some mother’s son does not help the logical solution of the question: To whom should the South Pole belong? More, that the power of Universal Law (the loom of which even now we can see) will usurp the place of the ancient butcher—in other words, that intellectual sanity will reign in place of unreasoning, foolish slaughter.
    “To the second danger, that of becoming soft of fibre and heart, I will oppose the fact that to lead the life of a civilian in this present century of ours, calls for as much sheer pluck, heroic courage, and fortitude as was possessed by the most blood-drunken human butcher of the old days.
    “If any have doubts on this point, let them try to imagine the ancient Roman soldier-hero facing the problem of 270 miles per hour in one of our up-to-date mono-rail cars; or, further, a trip round the earth in one of the big flying boats, at a speed of from 600 to 800 miles an hour, and they will, I think, agree that there is some little reason with me.
    “ ‘Oh,’ I hear the cry, ‘that’s because we’re used to it. Let them get used to it, and they wouldn’t mind.’
    “True, my friends; but so were the Ancients used to slaughter; almost as much so as we’re used to our mono-rail and flying boats. Yet there were cowards then, who shirked fighting, and never won free from their cowardice; for all that they lived in a very atmosphere of war. There are cowards today, who have never travelled above the puny rate of 100 miles an hour, and who never will; though all about them is the roar of our higher speeds; for the rest, the courage of the man of today is well suited to the needs of his time; far more so than if he were gifted with the sort possessed by some ancient hero.
    “But to get back to our muttons, as an ancient saying has