12 chapters
10 hour read
Selected Chapters
12 chapters
CHAPTER THE FIRST — THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD.
CHAPTER THE FIRST — THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD.
In the middle years of the nineteenth century there first became abundant in this strange world of ours a class of men, men tending for the most part to become elderly, who are called, and who are very properly called, but who dislike extremely to be called—“Scientists.” They dislike that word so much that from the columns of Nature , which was from the first their distinctive and characteristic paper, it is as carefully excluded as if it were—that other word which is the basis of all really bad
23 minute read
CHAPTER THE SECOND. — THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM.
CHAPTER THE SECOND. — THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM.
Mr. Bensington proposed originally to try this stuff, so soon as he was really able to prepare it, upon tadpoles. One always does try this sort of thing upon tadpoles to begin with; this being what tadpoles are for. And it was agreed that he should conduct the experiments and not Redwood, because Redwood’s laboratory was occupied with the ballistic apparatus and animals necessary for an investigation into the Diurnal Variation in the Butting Frequency of the Young Bull Calf, an investigation tha
2 hour read
CHAPTER THE THIRD. — THE GIANT RATS.
CHAPTER THE THIRD. — THE GIANT RATS.
It was two nights after the disappearance of Mr. Skinner that the Podbourne doctor was out late near Hankey, driving in his buggy. He had been up all night assisting another undistinguished citizen into this curious world of ours, and his task accomplished, he was driving homeward in a drowsy mood enough. It was about two o’clock in the morning, and the waning moon was rising. The summer night had gone cold, and there was a low-lying whitish mist that made things indistinct. He was quite alone—f
2 hour read
CHAPTER THE FOURTH. — THE GIANT CHILDREN.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH. — THE GIANT CHILDREN.
For a time at least the spreading circle of residual consequences about the Experimental Farm must pass out of the focus of our narrative—how for a long time a power of bigness, in fungus and toadstool, in grass and weed, radiated from that charred but not absolutely obliterated centre. Nor can we tell here at any length how these mournful spinsters, the two surviving hens, made a wonder of and a show, spent their remaining years in eggless celebrity. The reader who is hungry for fuller details
2 hour read
CHAPTER THE FIFTH. — THE MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH. — THE MINIMIFICENCE OF MR. BENSINGTON.
It was while the Royal Commission on Boomfood was preparing its report that Herakleophorbia really began to demonstrate its capacity for leakage. And the earliness of this second outbreak was the more unfortunate, from the point of view of Cossar at any rate, since the draft report still in existence shows that the Commission had, under the tutelage of that most able member, Doctor Stephen Winkles (F.R.S. M.D. F.R.C.P. D. Sc. J.P. D.L. etc.), already quite made up its mind that accidental leakag
28 minute read
CHAPTER THE FIRST. — THE COMING OF THE FOOD.
CHAPTER THE FIRST. — THE COMING OF THE FOOD.
Our theme, which began so compactly in Mr. Bensington’s study, has already spread and branched, until it points this way and that, and henceforth our whole story is one of dissemination. To follow the Food of the Gods further is to trace the ramifications of a perpetually branching tree; in a little while, in the quarter of a lifetime, the Food had trickled and increased from its first spring in the little farm near Hickleybrow until it had spread,—it and the report and shadow of its power,—thro
47 minute read
CHAPTER THE SECOND. — THE BRAT GIGANTIC.
CHAPTER THE SECOND. — THE BRAT GIGANTIC.
The giant child was ugly—the Vicar would insist. “He always had been ugly—as all excessive things must be.” The Vicar’s views had carried him out of sight of just judgment in this matter. The child was much subjected to snapshots even in that rustic retirement, and their net testimony is against the Vicar, testifying that the young monster was at first almost pretty, with a copious curl of hair reaching to his brow and a great readiness to smile. Usually Caddles, who was slightly built, stands s
40 minute read
CHAPTER THE FIRST. — THE ALTERED WORLD.
CHAPTER THE FIRST. — THE ALTERED WORLD.
Change played in its new fashion with the world for twenty years. To most men the new things came little by little and day by day, remarkably enough, but not so abruptly as to overwhelm. But to one man at least the full accumulation of those two decades of the Food’s work was to be revealed suddenly and amazingly in one day. For our purpose it is convenient to take him for that one day and to tell something of the things he saw. This man was a convict, a prisoner for life—his crime is no concern
58 minute read
CHAPTER THE SECOND. — THE GIANT LOVERS.
CHAPTER THE SECOND. — THE GIANT LOVERS.
Now it chanced in the days when Caterham was campaigning against the Boom-children before the General Election that was—amidst the most tragic and terrible circumstances—to bring him into power, that the giant Princess, that Serene Highness whose early nutrition had played so great a part in the brilliant career of Doctor Winkles, had come from the kingdom of her father to England, on an occasion that was deemed important. She was affianced for reasons of state to a certain Prince—and the weddin
45 minute read
CHAPTER THE THIRD. — YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON.
CHAPTER THE THIRD. — YOUNG CADDLES IN LONDON.
All unaware of the trend of events, unaware of the laws that were closing in upon all the Brethren, unaware indeed that there lived a Brother for him on the earth, young Caddles chose this time to come out of his chalk pit and see the world. His brooding came at last to that. There was no answer to all his questions in Cheasing Eyebright; the new Vicar was less luminous even than the old, and the riddle of his pointless labour grew at last to the dimensions of exasperation. “Why should I work in
32 minute read
CHAPTER THE FOURTH. — REDWOOD’S TWO DAYS.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH. — REDWOOD’S TWO DAYS.
So soon as Caterham knew the moment for grasping his nettle had come, he took the law into his own hands and sent to arrest Cossar and Redwood. Redwood was there for the taking. He had been undergoing an operation in the side, and the doctors had kept all disturbing things from him until his convalescence was assured. Now they had released him. He was just out of bed, sitting in a fire-warmed room, with a heap of newspapers about him, reading for the first time of the agitation that had swept th
47 minute read
CHAPTER THE FIFTH. — THE GIANT LEAGUER.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH. — THE GIANT LEAGUER.
Presently Redwood found himself in a train going south over the Thames. He had a brief vision of the river shining under its lights, and of the smoke still going up from the place where the shell had fallen on the north bank, and where a vast multitude of men had been organised to burn the Herakleophorbia out of the ground. The southern bank was dark, for some reason even the streets were not lit, all that was clearly visible was the outlines of the tall alarm-towers and the dark bulks of flats
37 minute read