"Wells, H G - The Research Magnificent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

never seems to have got a lodgment in Benham's skull; though at
times one might suppose it the basis of White's thought. You will
find in all Benham's story, if only it can be properly told, now
subdued, now loud and amazed and distressed, but always traceable,
this startled, protesting question, "BUT WHY THE DEVIL AREN'T WE?"
As though necessarily we ought to be. He never faltered in his
persuasion that behind the dingy face of this world, the earthy
stubbornness, the baseness and dulness of himself and all of us,
lurked the living jewels of heaven, the light of glory, things
unspeakable. At first it seemed to him that one had only just to
hammer and will, and at the end, after a life of willing and
hammering, he was still convinced there was something, something in
the nature of an Open Sesame, perhaps a little more intricate than
one had supposed at first, a little more difficult to secure, but
still in that nature, which would suddenly roll open for mankind the
magic cave of the universe, that precious cave at the heart of all
things, in which one must believe.

And then life--life would be the wonder it so perplexingly just
isn't. . . .



2


Benham did not go about the world telling people of this consuming
research. He was not the prophet or preacher of his idea. It was
too living and intricate and uncertain a part of him to speak freely
about. It was his secret self; to expose it casually would have
shamed him. He drew all sorts of reserves about him, he wore his
manifest imperfections turned up about him like an overcoat in
bitter wind. He was content to be inexplicable. His thoughts led
him to the conviction that this magnificent research could not be,
any more than any other research can be, a solitary enterprise, but
he delayed expression; in a mighty writing and stowing away of these
papers he found a relief from the unpleasant urgency to confess and
explain himself prematurely. So that White, though he knew Benham
with the intimacy of an old schoolfellow who had renewed his
friendship, and had shared his last days and been a witness of his
death, read the sheets of manuscript often with surprise and with a
sense of added elucidation.

And, being also a trained maker of books, White as he read was more
and more distressed that an accumulation so interesting should be so
entirely unshaped for publication. "But this will never make a
book," said White with a note of personal grievance. His hasty
promise in their last moments together had bound him, it seemed, to
a task he now found impossible. He would have to work upon it
tremendously; and even then he did not see how it could be done.