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"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, amid a sustained interruption
from the back. "I beg pardon--Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children--I
must apologize, I had inadvertently omitted a considerable
section of this audience" (tumult, during which the Professor
stood with one hand raised and his enormous head nodding
sympathetically, as if he were bestowing a pontifical blessing
upon the crowd), "I have been selected to move a vote of thanks
to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and imaginative address
to which we have just listened. There are points in it with
which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them as
they arose, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his
object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting
account of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet.
Popular lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron"
(here he beamed and blinked at the lecturer) "will excuse me when
I say that they are necessarily both superficial and misleading,
since they have to be graded to the comprehension of an
ignorant audience." (Ironical cheering.) "Popular lecturers
are in their nature parasitic." (Angry gesture of protest from
Mr. Waldron.) "They exploit for fame or cash the work which has
been done by their indigent and unknown brethren. One smallest
new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into the
temple of science, far outweighs any second-hand exposition which
passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it.
I put forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to
disparage Mr. Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose
your sense of proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest."
(At this point Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose
and said something severely to his water-carafe.) "But enough
of this!" (Loud and prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some
subject of wider interest. What is the particular point upon
which I, as an original investigator, have challenged our
lecturer's accuracy? It is upon the permanence of certain types
of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this subject
as an amateur, nor, I may add, as a popular lecturer, but I speak
as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely
to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing
that because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric
animal, therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are
indeed, as he has said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use
the expression, our contemporary ancestors, who can still be
found with all their hideous and formidable characteristics if
one has but the energy and hardihood to seek their haunts.
Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, monsters who would
hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest mammals, still exist."
(Cries of "Bosh!" "Prove it!" "How do YOU know?" "Question!")
"How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited their
secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them."
(Applause, uproar, and a voice, "Liar!") "Am I a liar?"
(General hearty and noisy assent.) "Did I hear someone say that I
was a liar? Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up
that I may know him?" (A voice, "Here he is, sir!" and an
inoffensive little person in spectacles, struggling violently,
was held up among a group of students.) "Did you venture to call
me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" shouted the accused, and disappeared
like a jack-in-the-box.) "If any person in this hall dares to
doubt my veracity, I shall be glad to have a few words with him
after the lecture." ("Liar!") "Who said that?" (Again the
inoffensive one plunging desperately, was elevated high into the air.)
"If I come down among you----" (General chorus of "Come, love, come!"
which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while the
chairman, standing up and waving both his arms, seemed to be
conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed,
his nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling, was now in a
proper Berserk mood.) "Every great discoverer has been met with
the same incredulity--the sure brand of a generation of fools.
When great facts are laid before you, you have not the intuition,
the imagination which would help you to understand them. You can
only throw mud at the men who have risked their lives to open new
fields to science. You persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin,
and I----" (Prolonged cheering and complete interruption.)
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