467 lines
23 KiB
Markdown
467 lines
23 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2016-05-07T02:52:03.000Z'
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title: My New York Misadventure (1932)
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url: http://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/23-finest-hour-136/2251-my-new-york-misadventure
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author: samclemens
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points: 54
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 5
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1462589523
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_samclemens
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- story_11648160
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objectID: '11648160'
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---
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FINEST HOUR 136, AUTUMN 2007
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BY WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
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First published in two parts in The Daily Mail, 4/5 January 1932, and
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later in volume form in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill,
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vol. IV, Churchill at Large (London: Library of Imperial History, 1975).
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Copyright © Winston S. Churchill, reprinted in Finest Hour by kind
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permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd., and the Churchill Literary Estate.
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\==================
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INTRODUCTION
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In New York in December 1931, on a lecture tour seeking to recoup his
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1929 losses in the stock market crash, Churchill was searching for his
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friend Bernard Baruch’s apartment. Looking the wrong way halfway across
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Fifth Avenue, he was struck by a car and almost killed. In hospital, he
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began dictating, while his bodyguard Sgt. Thompson took measures to
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maintain his privacy— “which included flinging all the clothes out of
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incoming laundry baskets to prevent reporters from disturbing the
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sickroom by hiding in the baskets to gain admittance,” according to
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Robert Lewis Taylor in Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness
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(New York: Doubleday, 1952). No working writer can be unimpressed with
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Churchill’s ability to turn mishap into opportunity. Taylor adds:
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Churchill was in agreement with his doctors that he should be guarded
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from upsets. His concern, while identical to theirs, was prompted by a
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different reason. Propped up in bed, he was busily at work on a rush
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article tentatively titled, “My New York Misadventure.” He finished it
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without distraction, sold it for $2500, then got up and took a
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convalescent trip to the Bahamas on the proceeds. Some weeks later, back
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home at Chartwell, he resumed the massive writing projects to which he
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was now dedicated.
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Today, two things strike us about this article. The first is amusing: it
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could have happened yesterday, not seventy-five years ago; yet much
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would be avoided— Churchill would have had a cell phone\! The second is
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more profound. It is the lesson Churchill offers us in facing death:
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“There is no room for remorse or fears. If at any moment in this long
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series of sensations a grey veil deepening into blackness had descended
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upon the sanctum I should have felt or feared nothing additional. Nature
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is merciful and does not try her children, man or beast, beyond their
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compass….For the rest—live dangerously; take things as they come; dread
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naught, all will be well. ” —RML
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\====================
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Some years ago there was a play at the Grand Guignol called “At the
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Telephone,” which attracted much attention. A husband, called away to
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Paris, leaves his wife in their suburban home. Every precaution is taken
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against burglars. There is the maid who will stay in the kitchen; there
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is the door which is locked; there is the revolver in the drawer of the
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writing table; and lastly, of course, there is, if needed, the appeal
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for help by the telephone.
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One by one the usefulness of all these measures disappears. The servant
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is called away; she leaves the front door unlocked so that she can
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return. She takes with her the key of the drawer in which the revolver
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is kept. Darkness comes on, and in the final act the agonized husband
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hears over the telephone his wife’s appeal for help while she is the
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victim of a murderous outrage. An impressive effect is given of doom
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marching forward step by step and of every human preventive slipping
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silently out of the path.
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Something of this impression rests with me when I recall my experiences
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of the night of 13 December 1931. I had finished dinner and was inclined
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to go to bed; but an old friend of mine rang up and suggested that I
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should go round to his house. He was Mr. Bernard Baruch, who was the
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head of the War Industries Board during the two years I was Minister of
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Munitions. We made friends over a long period of official cables on
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grave business, and have preserved these relations through the now
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lengthening years of peace. He said he had one or two mutual friends
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whom I was most anxious to meet, and as the hour was a little after half
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past nine, I was readily enlisted in the project.
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I descended by lift the thirty-nine storeys which separated my room from
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the street level. When I arrived at the bottom it occurred to me that I
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did not know the exact number in Fifth Avenue of my friend’s house. I
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knew it was somewhere near 1100. I knew the aspect of the house; I had
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been there by daylight on several occasions. It was a house of only five
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or six storeys standing with one or two others of similar construction
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amid large apartment buildings of more than double the height. I thought
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it probable I would pick it out from the windows of my waiting taxicab,
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so after a vain search in the telephone book—only Mr. Baruch’s
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business address was there—I started.
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Fifth Avenue is an immensely long thoroughfare, and the traffic upon it,
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as elsewhere in New York, is regulated by red and green lights. When the
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red light shows, every vehicle must stop at the nearest crossroad. When
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after an interval of two minutes the lights turn green, they all go as
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hard as possible until the light changes into red. Thus we progressed by
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a series of jerks.
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When I got near the eleven hundreds I peered out of the cab window and
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scanned the houses as we sped past, but could not see any like the one I
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was seeking They all seemed to be tall buildings of fourteen or fifteen
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storeys. On the left lay the dark expanse of Central Park.
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At length we reached the twelve hundreds and it was certain I had
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overshot my mark. I told the cabman to turn round and go back slowly so
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that I could scan every building in turn. Hitherto we had been moving up
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the right or centre of the thoroughfare and could at any moment have
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stopped opposite any house. Now we had turned round. We were on the
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Park, or far side from the houses, with a stream of traffic between us
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and the pavement.
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At length I saw a house smaller than the rest and told the cabman to
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turn in there to make inquiries. It occurred to me that as we must be
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within a hundred houses of Mr. Baruch’s address, and that as he was so
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prominent a citizen, any of the porters of the big apartment houses
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would know which his house was. A London butler nearly always knows who
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lives in the three or four houses on the right or left.
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The porter of the apartment house at which I inquired recognized me at
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once and said he had served in the South African War. He had no idea
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where Mr. Baruch lived, but eagerly produced the telephone book, which
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could, as I have stated, give no clue in my present quest.
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In order to stop opposite this house we had to wait until the light
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changed, then turn round on to the opposite course, draw up at the
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pavement \[sidewalk in USA\], and thereafter make a second turn, again
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being very likely stopped by a change in the light. When this had
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happened three times and we were unlucky in missing the permissive green
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light, I began to be a little impatient.
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It was now nearly half-past ten. My friends knew I had started an hour
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before. Ordinarily the journey should not have taken ten minutes. They
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might think some accident had happened to me or that I had changed my
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mind and was not coming at all. They would be waiting about for a tardy
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guest. I began to be worried about the situation at the house I was
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seeking. I thought I might have, after all, to go back to my hotel and
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go to bed.
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We had now arrived, as I supposed, at about the nine hundreds, and here
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were certainly houses much smaller than the others. So instead of going
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through this long ritual of cab-turning on to the other side of the
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street, with all the delays of the lights, and then returning again on
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to its general course, I told the cabman to stop where he was on the
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Central Park side of the avenue; I would walk across the road myself and
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inquire at the most likely house.
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In England we frequently cross roads along which fast traffic is moving
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in both directions. I did not think the task I set myself now either
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difficult or rash. But at this moment habit played me a deadly trick. I
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no sooner got out of the cab somewhere about the middle of the road and
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told the driver to wait than I instinctively turned my eyes to the left.
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About 200 yards away were the yellow headlights of an approaching car. I
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thought I had just time to cross the road before it arrived; and I
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started to do so in the prepossession—wholly unwarranted— that my only
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dangers were from the left. The yellow-lighted car drew near and I
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increased my pace towards the pavement, perhaps twenty feet away.
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Suddenly upon my right I was aware of something utterly unexpected and
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boding mortal peril. I turned my head sharply. Right upon me, scarcely
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its own length away, was what seemed a long dark car rushing forward at
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full speed.
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There was one moment—I cannot measure it in time—of a world aglare, of a
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man aghast. I certainly thought quickly enough to achieve the idea, “I
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am going to be run down and probably killed.” Then came the blow.
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I felt it on my forehead and across the thighs. But besides the blow
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there was an impact, a shock, a concussion indescribably violent. Many
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years ago at “Plugstreet” in Flanders, a 4.2 shell burst in a corner of
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the little room in which we were gathered for luncheon, reducing all to
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dust and devastation. This shock was of the same order as the shell
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explosion. In my case it blotted out everything except thought.
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Mario Constasino\*, owner of a medium-sized automobile, was running
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between 30 and 35 miles an hour on roads which were wet and greasy. He
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was on his proper side of the road and perfectly entitled to make the
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best speed he could, when suddenly a dark figure appeared immediately in
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front of him. He applied all his brakes, and at the same moment, before
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they could act, he struck a heavy body. The car shuddered, and, after
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skidding somewhat under the brakes, came to rest in probably a few
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lengths. Three or four feet from the right-hand wheel lay a black,
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shapeless mass.
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Mario had driven for eight or nine years and had never had an accident.
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He seems to have been overpoweringly agitated and distressed. He heard a
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loud cry, “A man has been killed\!” The traffic banked up on either
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side. People came running from all directions. Constables appeared. One
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group clustered around Mario, another around the prostrate figure.
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A friend of mine of mathematical predilections\*\* has been kind enough
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to calculate the stresses involved in the collision. The car weighed
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some 2400 pounds. With my evening coat on I could not have weighed much
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less than 200 pounds. Taking the rate of the car at 35 miles an hour—I
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think a moderate estimate—I had actually to absorb in my body 6000
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foot-pounds. It was the equivalent of falling thirty feet on to a
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pavement. The energy absorbed, though not, of course, the application of
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destructive force, was the equivalent of stopping ten pounds of buckshot
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dropped 600 feet, or two charges of buckshot at point-blank range.
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I do not understand why I was not broken like an egg-shell or squashed
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like a gooseberry. I have seen that the poor policeman who was killed on
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the Oxford road was hit by a vehicle travelling at very much the same
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speed and was completely shattered. I certainly must be very tough or
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very lucky, or both.
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Meanwhile, I had not lost consciousness for an instant. Somewhere in the
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black bundle towards which the passers-by are running there is a small
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chamber or sanctum wherein all is orderly and undisturbed. There sits
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enthroned a mind intact and unshaken. Before it is a keyboard of letters
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or buttons directing the body. Above, a whole series of loudspeakers
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report the sensations and experiences of the empire controlled from this
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tiny headquarters. This mind is in possession of the following
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conclusion:
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“I have been run over by a motorcar in America. All those worries about
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being late are now swept away. They do not matter any more. Here is a
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real catastrophe. Perhaps it is the end.”
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The reader will observe from this authentic record that I experienced no
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emotion of regret or fear. I simply registered facts without, except for
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a general sense of disaster, the power to moralize upon them. But now
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all the loudspeakers began to blare together their information from the
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body. My mind was overpowered by the hideous noise they made from which
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no intelligible conclusion could be drawn. Wave upon wave of convulsive,
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painful sensations seemed to flood into this small room,
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preventing thought, paralysing action, but impossible to comprehend. I
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had, for instance, no knowledge of whether I was lying on my back or
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side or face.
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How long this period lasted I cannot tell. I am told that from the time
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I was struck down to when I was lifted into a taxicab was perhaps five
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minutes, but although I was in no way stunned, my physical sensations
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were so violent that I could not achieve any continuous mental process.
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I just had to endure them.
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Presently, however, from my headquarters I see a swirl of figures
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assembling around me. I have an impression of traffic arrested and of
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dramatically gathered crowds. Friendly hands are laid upon me.
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I suppose I ought now to have had some very pious and inspiring
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reflections. However, all that occurred to me was, “I shall not be able
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to give my lecture tomorrow night in Brooklyn. Whatever will my poor
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agent do about it?” Then more definite impressions. A constable is
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bending over me. My head and shoulders are being raised towards him. He
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has a book, quite a big book, in his hand.
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“What is your name?”
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“Winston Churchill.”
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I protest I am no snob, but on this occasion I thought it lawful and
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prudent to add, “The Right Honourable Winston Churchill from England.”
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I heard distinctly respectful “Oh, ohs” from the crowd.
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“What is your age?” asked the officer, adhering to his routine.
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“Fifty-seven,” I replied, and at the same moment this odd thought
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obtruded itself upon my mind. “How very odd to be knocked down in the
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street by a motorcar. I shall have a very poor chance of getting over
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it.”
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The constable proceeded to demand particulars of the accident My mind
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and speech apparatus worked apparently without hitch, and I could
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volubly have told him all that is set down here; but instead, to save
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trouble, I said: “I am entirely to blame; it is all my own fault.” Later
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it seemed that another constable came with the question, “Do you make
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any charge against any person?” To which I replied, “I exonerate
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everyone.”
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At this the interrogation ceased abruptly, and Mario in the background
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(though I did not know this until afterwards) was released from
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captivity.
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During all this time I was in what I suppose would be called great pain;
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though the sensations really presented themselves to me mainly as an
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overpowering of the mind. Gradually I began to be more aware of all that
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was going on around me.
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It appears that an ambulance was passing, and the crowd stopped it and
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demanded that it should take me to the nearest hospital. The ambulance,
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which had a serious case on board, refused. Thereupon a taximan
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exclaimed in a voice which I would perfectly well hear, “Take him in my
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cab. There’s the Lenox Hill Hospital on 76th Street.”
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Accordingly I was lifted by perhaps eight or ten persons to the floor of
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the taxicab. I now discovered that my overcoat had been half torn off me
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and trussed my arms back. I thought both shoulders were dislocated. My
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right shoulder dislocates chronically, and I asked repeatedly that care
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should be taken in lifting me by it. Eventually the constable and two
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others got into the cab and we all started, jammed up together.
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Up till now nothing could have been more calm and clear than my interior
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thought, apart from the blaring of pain and discomfort which came
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through the loud-speakers. All was in order in my inner sanctum, but I
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had not ventured to touch the keyboard of action and had been content to
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remain an entirely inert mass.
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I now saw, as I lay on the floor of the cab, both my hands, very white
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and covered with blood, lying across my breast. So I decided to give
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them an order to move their fingers and at the same time I pulled the
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levers which affect the toes. Neither hands nor feet took the slightest
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notice. They might as well have belonged to someone else for all the
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attention they paid to my will.
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I now became, for the first time, seriously alarmed. I feared that in
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this bundle of dull pain which people were carting about, and which was
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my body, there might be some grave, serious injury to the spine. The
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impression “crippled for life” registered itself in the sanctum. Yet
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even then there was so much going on that one could not focus it very
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clearly or grieve about it much.
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What a nice thing it would be to get to the hospital and have this
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overcoat cut off, to have my shoulders put back into their sockets, and,
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above all to lie down straight upon a bed. My companions kept cheering
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me up. “We are very near now: only another block or two,” and so on. So
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we rumbled on.
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And then a most blessed thing happened. I began to experience violent
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pins and needles in both my upper arms. They hurt intensely; but I did
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not mind, because at the same time I found my fingers beginning to move
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in accordance with my will. Almost immediately afterwards the toes
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responded to my orders. Then swiftly, by waves of pins and needles
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almost agonizing in their intensity, warmth, life and obedience began to
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flow back into the whole of my trunk.
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By the time we pulled up at the hospital I had the assurance that,
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although I might have an arm or leg or two broken and was certainly
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bruised and shaken, the whole main structure of my body was sound. Blood
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continued to flow freely from my forehead and my nose; but I did not
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worry about that at all, because in my sanctum we had decided: “There
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can be no brain injury, as we have never lost consciousness even for a
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second.”
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At last we arrive at the hospital. A wheeled chair is brought. I am
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carried into it. I am wheeled up steps into a hall and a lift. By now I
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feel battered but perfectly competent. They said afterwards I was
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confused; but I did not feel so.
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“Are you prepared to pay for a private room and doctor?” asked a clerk.
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“Yes, bring all the best you have ….Take me to a private room….Where is
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your telephone?….Give me the Waldorf Astoria….I will tell my wife myself
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that whatever has happened. I am going to get quite well.”
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But after an interval they said, “She is already on the way here.”
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Not for one moment had I felt up to the present any sensation of
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faintness, but now I said, “Give me sal volatile, or something like
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that.” A reviver was brought. A house surgeon staunched my wound.
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“Let me,” I asked, “get these clothes off and lie down. I can stand for
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a moment if you hold me up.”
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Soon I am on a bed. Presently come keen, comprehending eyes and deft,
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firm fingers.
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“We shall have to dress that scalp wound at once. It is cut to the
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bone.”
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“Will it hurt?”
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“Yes.”
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“I do not wish to be hurt any more. Give me chloroform or something.”
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“The anaesthetist is already on the way.”
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More lifting and wheeling. The operating room. White glaring lights. The
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mask of a nitrous-oxide inhaler. Whenever I have taken gas or chloroform
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I always follow this rule. I imagine myself sitting on a chair with my
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back to a lovely swimming bath into which I am to be tilted, and throw
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myself backwards; or, again, as if one were throwing one’s self back
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after a tiring day into a vast armchair. This helps the process of
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anaesthesia wonderfully. A few deep breaths, and one has no longer the
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power to speak to the world.
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With me the nitrous-oxide trance usually takes this form: the sanctum is
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occupied by alien powers. I see the absolute truth and explanation of
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things, but something is left out which upsets the whole, so by a larger
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sleep of the mind I have to see a greater truth and a more complete
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explanation which comprises the erring element. Nevertheless, there is
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still something left out. So we have to take a still wider sweep. This
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almost breaks mortal comprehension. It is beyond anything the human mind
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was ever meant to master.
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The process continues inexorably. Depth beyond depth of unendurable
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truth opens. I have, therefore, always regarded the nitrous-oxide trance
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as a mere substitution of mental for physical pain.
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Pain it certainly is; but suddenly these poignant experiences end and
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without a perceptible interval consciousness returns. Reassuring words
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are spoken. I see a beloved face. My wife is smiling. In the background
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there rises the grave, venerable countenance of Mr Bernard Baruch. So I
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ask:
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“Tell me, Baruch, what is the number of your house?”
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“1055.”
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“How near was I to it when I was smashed up?”
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“Not within ten blocks.” (Half a mile.)
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Such in short were my experiences on the night of 13 December; and the
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message I bring back from these dark places is one of encouragement. I
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certainly suffered every pang, mental and physical, that a street
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accident or, I suppose, a shell wound can produce. None is unendurable.
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There is neither the time nor the strength for self-pity. There is no
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room for remorse or fears. If at any moment in this long series of
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sensations a grey veil deepening into blackness had descended upon the
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||
sanctum I should have felt or feared nothing additional. Nature is
|
||
merciful and does not try her children, man or beast, beyond their
|
||
compass. It is only where the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish
|
||
torments appear. For the rest— live dangerously; take things as they
|
||
come; dread naught, all will be well.
|
||
|
||
I ought not to forget to add that I have since looked into my despatch
|
||
box and I have found that my far-seeing private secretary in England,
|
||
Mrs. Pearman, had furnished me with a travelling address book of people
|
||
I might want to communicate with in the United States, and in this I
|
||
read; “Baruch, 1055 Fifth Avenue,” with the private telephone number
|
||
duly set out.
|
||
|
||
All of which goes to show that even the best human precautions afford no
|
||
definite guarantee of safety.
|
||
|
||
\===================
|
||
|
||
\*On 28 January, Conscasino was among 2000 at the Brooklyn Academy of
|
||
Music to hear Churchill’s first lecture after his recovery. WSC also
|
||
presented him with an inscribed copy of My Early Life.
|
||
|
||
\*\*WSC cabled Professor Frederick Lindemann for a description of what
|
||
had happened to him. Lindemann replied on 30 December:
|
||
|
||
“Collision equivalent falling thirty feet onto pavement, equal six
|
||
thousand foot-pounds of energy. Equivalent stopping ten pound brick
|
||
dropped six hundred feet, or two charges buckshot pointblank range.
|
||
Shock probably proportional rate energy transferred. Rate inversely
|
||
proportional thickness cushion surrounding skeleton and give of frame.
|
||
If assume average one inch, your body transferred during impact at rate
|
||
eight thousand horsepower. Congratulations on preparing suitable
|
||
cushion, and skill in taking bump.”
|
||
|
||
### Related Story
|
||
|
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