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Title: The Ideal
Author: Stanley G. Weinbaum
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0607261h.html
Language: English
Date first posted: September 2006
Date most recently updated: September 2006

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THE IDEAL
by

Stanley G. Weinbaum

"This," said the Franciscan, "is my Automaton, who at the proper time will speak, answer whatsoever
question I may ask, and reveal all secret knowledge to me." He smiled as he laid his hand affectionately
on the iron skull that topped the pedestal.

The youth gazed open-mouthed, first at the head and then at the Friar. "But it's iron!" he whispered. "The
head is iron, good father."

"Iron without, skill within, my son," said Roger Bacon. "It will speak, at the proper time and in its own
manner, for so have I made it. A clever man can twist the devil's arts to God's ends, thereby cheating the
fiendтАФSst! There sounds vespers! Plena gratia, ave Virgo."

But it did not speak. Long hours, long weeks, the doctor mirabilis watched his creation, but iron lips
were silent and the iron eyes dull, and no voice but the great man's own sounded in his monkish cell, nor
was there ever an answer to all the questions that he askedтАФuntil one day when he sat surveying his