The Fellowship of the Talisman Read Online Free PDF Page B

discovered Purgatory. These are not the kinds of things we need. What we need is an understanding of Evil, for only with an understanding of it will we have some grounds upon which to fight against it.
    â€œNot only should we get ourselves into a position to fight it effectively for our own peace of mind, for some measure of freedom against the indignity, injury and pain Evil inflicts upon us, but for the growth of our civilization. Consider for the moment that for many centuries we have been a stagnant society, making no progress. What is done each day upon this estate, what is done each day throughout the world, does not differ one iota from what was done a thousand years ago. The grains are cut as they always have been harvested, threshed as they always have been threshed, the fields are plowed with the same inefficient plows, the peasants starve as they have always starved.…”
    â€œOn this estate they don’t,” said Duncan’s father. “Here no one starves. We look after our own people. And they look after us. We store food against the bad years and when the bad years come, as they seldom do, the food is there for all of us and …”
    â€œMy lord,” said the archbishop, “you will pardon me. I was speaking quite in general. What I have said is not true on this estate, as I well know, but it is true in general.”
    â€œOur family,” said Duncan’s father, “has held these lands for close on ten centuries. As holders of the land, we have accepted the implicit responsibility …”
    â€œPlease,” said the archbishop, “I did not mean your house. Now may I go on?”
    â€œI regret interrupting you,” said Duncan’s father, “but I felt obliged to make it clear that no one goes hungry at Standish House.”
    â€œQuite so,” the archbishop said. “And now to go on with what I was saying. It is my opinion that this great weight of Evil which has borne down upon our shoulders has worked against any sort of progress. It has not always been so. In the olden days men invented the wheel, made pottery, tamed the animals, domesticated plants, smelted ore, but since that first beginning there has been little done. There have been times when there seemed a spark of hope, if history tells us true. There was a spark of hope in Greece, but Greece went down to nothing. For a moment Rome seemed to hold a certain greatness and some promise, but in the end Rome was in the dust. It would seem that by now, in the twentieth century, there should be some sign of progress. Better carts, perhaps, and better roads for the carts to run on, better plows and a better understanding of how to use the land, better ways of building houses so that peasants need no longer live in noisome huts, better ships to ply the seas. Sometimes, I have speculated on an alternate history, an alternate to our world, where this Evil did not exist. A world where many centuries of progress have opened possibilities we cannot ’even guess. That could have been our world, our twentieth century. But it is only a dream, of course.
    â€œWe know, however, that west of us, across the Atlantic, there are new lands, vast new lands, so we are told. Sailors from the south of Britain and the western coasts of Gaul go there to catch the cod, but few others, for there are few trustworthy ships to go in. And, perhaps, no great desire to go, for we are deficient in our enterprise. We are held in thrall by Evil and until we do something about that Evil, we will continue so.
    â€œOur society is ill, ill in its lack of progress and in many other ways. I have also often speculated that the Evil may feed upon our misery, grow strong upon our misery, and that to insure good feeding it may actively insure that the misery continues. It seems to me, too, that this great Evil may not always have been with us. In earlier days men did make some progress, doing those few things that have made