Beyond Thirty quotes

Now, in all the Western Hemisphere dwells no man who may not find a school house within walking distance of his home, or at least within flying distance.

The wildest beast that roams our waste places lairs in the frozen north or the frozen south within a government reserve, where the curious may view him and feed him bread crusts from the hand with perfect impunity.

But beyond thirty! And I have gone there, and come back; and now you may go there, for no longer is it high treason, punishable by disgrace or death, to cross 30° or 175°.

… familiar with the naval tradition that a good officer could sense proximity to either line, and for my part, I am as firmly convinced of the truth of this as I am that the compass finds the north without recourse to tedious processes of reasoning.

Old Admiral Sanchez was wont to maintain that he could smell thirty, and the men of the first ship in which I sailed claimed that Coburn, the navigating officer, knew by name every wave along thirty from 60° N. to 60° S.

However, I’d hate to vouch for this.

I dismissed him with a few kind words, for I knew that it was through no fault of his that the mechanism was antiquated and worthless, in common with the balance of the Coldwater’s equipment. There was no finer operator in Pan-America than he.

The failure of the wireless did not appear as momentous to me as to him, which is not unnatural, since it is but human to feel that when our own little cog slips, the entire universe must necessarily be put out of gear.

I knew that if this storm were destined to blow us across thirty, or send us to the bottom of the ocean, no help could reach us in time to prevent it.

“The other three have gone,” I said, and I happened to be looking at Johnson as I spoke.

Was it the shadow of a satisfied smile that crossed his thin lips? I do not know; but at least he did not weep.

“You always have been curious, sir, about the great unknown beyond thirty,” he said. “You are in a good way to have your curiosity satisfied.” And then I could not mistake the slight sneer that curved his upper lip.

I knew that I was right. I knew that no more loyal officer wore the uniform of the navy.

I knew that I was a good officer and sailor, and I didn’t propose submitting to degradation and discharge because a lot of old, preglacial fossils had declared over two hundred years before that no man should cross thirty.

Even while these thoughts were passing through my mind I was busy with the details of my duties.

Even Snider had to admit that it was.

“Very well, then, let us live while we live, and enjoy to the fullest whatever of adventure or pleasure each new day brings, since any day may be our last, and we shall be dead for a considerable while.”

I could see that Snider was still fearful, but Taylor and Delcarte responded with a hearty, “Aye, aye, sir!”

I have always led. While my brain and brawn remain unimpaired I shall continue always to lead.

Following is an art which Turcks do not easily learn.

It was not until the third day that we raised land, dead ahead, which I took, from my map, to be the isles of Scilly.

… knew nothing of it, though but two centuries had passed since, to our knowledge, it had been running in the height of its titanic frightfulness all about them, and to us upon the far side of the Atlantic still was a subject of keen interest.

Here was a lifelong inhabitant of the Isle of Wight who never had heard of either Germany or England!

I turned to him quite suddenly with a new question.

But where were the tugs and the lighters and the barges, the lightships and the buoys, and all those countless attributes which went to make up the myriad life of the ancient Thames?

Gone! All gone! Only silence and desolation reigned where once the commerce of the world had centered.

I could not help but compare this once great waterway with the waters about our New York, or Rio, or San Diego, or Valparaiso.

Ah, what thoughts passed through my mind in those brief moments as I stood there in rapt fascination!

I had come to find a wondrous civilization, and instead I found a wild-beast monarch of the realm where English kings had ruled.

A lion reigned, undisturbed, within a few miles of the seat of one of the greatest governments the world has ever known, his domain a howling wilderness, where yesterday fell the shadows of the largest city in the world.

Ah, what thoughts passed through my mind in those brief moments as I stood there in rapt fascination! I had come to find a wondrous civilization, and instead I found a wild-beast monarch of the realm where English kings had ruled.

A lion reigned, undisturbed, within a few miles of the seat of one of the greatest governments the world has ever known, his domain a howling wilderness, where yesterday fell the shadows of the largest city in the world.

It was appalling; but my reflections upon this depressing subject were doomed to sudden extinction. The lion had discovered me.

Personally, I do not place much stock in Professor Cortoran’s theory, though I admit that I am prejudiced.

Naturally one does not care to believe that the object of his greatest affection is descended from a gibbering idiot and a raving maniac.

But I am forgetting the continuity of my narrative—a continuity which I desire to maintain, though I fear that I shall often be led astray, so numerous and varied are the bypaths of speculation which lead from the present day story of the Grabritins into …

It appears that the line of descent is through the women. A man is merely head of his wife’s family—that is all. If she chances to be the oldest female member of the “royal” house, he is king.

Very naively the girl explained that there was seldom any doubt as to whom a child’s mother was.

This accounted for the girl’s importance in the community and for Buckingham’s anxiety to claim her, though she told me that she did not wish to become his woman, for he was a bad man and would make a bad king.

To these depths of ignorance, brutality, and superstition had the vaunted civilization of twentieth century England been plunged, and by what? War!

I felt the structure of our time-honored militaristic arguments crumbling about me.

Mary labored with the thongs that confined me. They proved refractory—defying her tender, childish fingers. She assured me, however, that she would release me, if “they” did not come too soon.

Presently two warriors entered. The leader exhibited a unique method of discovering my whereabouts in the darkness. He advanced slowly, kicking out viciously before him.

Finally he kicked me in the face. Then he knew where I was.

A moment later I had been jerked roughly to my feet. One of the fellows stopped and severed the bonds that held my ankles. I could scarcely stand alone. The two pulled and hauled me through the low doorway and along the trench.

And, still upon my knees, I turned, and taking the girl’s hand in mine, I kissed it. She smiled at that, and laid her other hand upon my head.

“You have strange customs in your country,” she said.

I could not but smile at that when I thought how strange it would seem to my countrymen could they but see me kneeling there on the site of London, kissing the hand of England’s queen.

Do you not dare come with me?”

“I dare follow wherever you lead,” she answered simply.

And so I turned and passed beneath the great arch into the city of London.

Great guns, bombs, and mines must have leveled every building that man had raised, and then nature, unhindered, had covered the ghastly evidence of human depravity with her beauteous mantle of verdure.

Splendid trees reared their stately tops where splendid cathedrals once had reared their domes, and sweet wild flowers blossomed in simple serenity in soil that once was drenched with human blood.

Nature had reclaimed what man had once stolen from her and defiled. A herd of zebras grazed where once the German kaiser may have reviewed his troops.

Splendid trees reared their stately tops where splendid cathedrals once had reared their domes, and sweet wild flowers blossomed in simple serenity in soil that once was drenched with human blood.

Nature had reclaimed what man had once stolen from her and defiled.

A herd of zebras grazed where once the German kaiser may have reviewed his troops.

Nature had reclaimed what man had once stolen from her and defiled.

A herd of zebras grazed where once the German kaiser may have reviewed his troops.

An antelope rested peacefully in a bed of daisies where, perhaps, two hundred years ago a big gun belched its terror-laden messages of death, of hate, of destruction against the works of man and God alike.

We buried Snider beside the Rhine, and no stone marks his last resting place.

Beasts do not require headstones.

Then we set out in the launch, turning her nose upstream. When I had told Delcarte and Taylor that I intended searching for the girl, neither had demurred.

She answered him in Abyssinian, but brokenly and with an accent that betrayed how recently she had acquired her slight knowledge of the tongue.

“I go on my knees to no one,” she said. “I have no sovereign. I myself am sovereign in my own country.”

Menelek, at her words, leaned back in his throne and laughed uproariously. Following his example, which seemed always the correct procedure, the assembled guests vied with one another in an effort to laugh more noisily than the emperor.

Menelek, at her words, leaned back in his throne and laughed uproariously.

Following his example, which seemed always the correct procedure, the assembled guests vied with one another in an effort to laugh more noisily than the emperor.

The girl but tilted her chin a bit higher in the air—even her back proclaimed her utter contempt for her captors. Finally Menelek restored quiet by the simple expedient of a frown, whereupon each loyal guest exchanged his mirthful mien for an emulative scowl.

The girl but tilted her chin a bit higher in the air—even her back proclaimed her utter contempt for her captors.

Finally Menelek restored quiet by the simple expedient of a frown, whereupon each loyal guest exchanged his mirthful mien for an emulative scowl.

“And who,” asked Menelek, “are you, and by what name is your country called?”

There was no answering gladness in her eyes. Instead, she stamped her little foot in anger.

“Why did it have to be you who saved me!” she exclaimed. “I hate you!”

“Hate me?” I asked. “Why should you hate me, Victory? I do not hate you. I—I—” What was I about to say? I was very close to her as a great light broke over me. Why had I never realized it before?

“You could not love a barbarian,” she went on, but she had ceased to struggle.

“But I do love a barbarian, Victory!” I cried, “the dearest barbarian in the world.”

She raised her eyes to mine, and then her smooth, brown arms encircled my neck and drew my lips down to hers.