Read Online Belle Moral: A Natural History by Ann-marie MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ann-marie MacDonald
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better.
She eats it, takes another
. W EE F ARLEIGH
serves tea
.
It is the secret of immortality. And what is immortality, but the fact of our common substance? One day, you and I and those daubs of paint [the
family portrait]
might trace our origins to a common ancestor, and that ancestor might turn out to be a mere … particle.
F LORA . “Remember man that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”
P EARL . What’s wrong, Doctor?
D R R EID. Nothing. You reminded me of someone just now.
P EARL . Who? Father?
D R R EID. No, no; someone I knew a very long time ago.
P EARL . Did she look like me?
D R R EID. It was a he. And no, he didn’t resemble you in the slightest – not outwardly – but I dare say the two of you might have struck up a friendship.
P EARL . We might even now. Is he still alive?
D R R EID . In a manner of speaking, yes. He was, I confess, myself. Foolish –
P EARL . Not at all.
D R R EID . Fanciful –
P EARL . Seamus, you’re blushing.
A beat. She’s smiling at him. He returns the smile. Laughs. She joins in
.
D R R EID . Pearl, I too heard that siren call from the bottomless well of deep time, for that is where our ultimate origins are to be found. And in my mind’s eye, I gazed through that microscope of finer and finer distinctions until it seemed all was … one. But those hypnotic depths can paralyze the will. Cast your gaze forward, my friend. Science now calls upon us to stake out the boundaries; to etch boldly those lines between one species and another, lines which Myth and Religion have smudged, and which Nature has only sketchily indicated.
P EARL . Nature is an impressionist, then.
D R R EID . And I would not have a Renoir on my wall for all the tea in China, for what do these Turners and Whistlers do? They glorify Nature’s seductive pull back to the primordial swamp out of which we so recently crawled; a pull to which we are now more susceptible than ever. Pearl, when our great Queen Victoria was born, man could travel no more swiftly than the ancient Egyptians, by horse; now the country is traversed by trains, oceans are plied by steamships; there will soon be horseless carriages clogging the streets and flying machines crowding theheavens. Innoculations save lives, sanitation extends lives, humane laws protect the defective where once they’d have been cruelly cast out to perish. We are at an historic juncture. Thanks to our interventions, Nature no longer holds dominion over our survival; she has lost the power to select the fit and discard the unfit. It’s up to us. We are, like it or not,
in locus Dei
.
P EARL . And what we are to do in God’s place? How are we to know what God’s work is?
D R R EID. It is to forge an earthly paradise; to rouse the infant science of eugenics from its cradle; to engender a blueprint for the New Man: genetically pure, morally uncontaminated.
P EARL . To identify the cause of the ear. And eradicate it.
D R R EID . Yes.
P EARL . As far as we know, there is nothing in the fossil record to indicate man’s descent from dogs.
D R R EID . There is not.
P EARL . Then, assuming the ear is canine, how can it be a throwback? If it were, one would expect it to be ape-like.
D R R EID. All mammals share a common ancestor.
P EARL . Wolves and primates diverged much later; thus if a human being exhibits a canine trait, the chance of it being atavistic is exceedingly slight.
D R R EID . Point taken. Then we are left, merely, with a case of monstrous birth; singular, interesting, but …
[disappointed]
meaningless.
P EARL . Unless …
D R R EID . Unless?
P EARL . Cast your gaze forward, my friend. Might it not be an emergent characteristic? Signalling the rise of a new species.
A beat. The holy grail
.
D R R EID . Nature’s most closely guarded secret.
P EARL . The inner workings of life itself. Exposed.
A beat
.
D R R EID . Marry me, Pearl, and I will take you to the source of the ear.
P EARL . So you do know
She eats it, takes another
. W EE F ARLEIGH
serves tea
.
It is the secret of immortality. And what is immortality, but the fact of our common substance? One day, you and I and those daubs of paint [the
family portrait]
might trace our origins to a common ancestor, and that ancestor might turn out to be a mere … particle.
F LORA . “Remember man that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”
P EARL . What’s wrong, Doctor?
D R R EID. Nothing. You reminded me of someone just now.
P EARL . Who? Father?
D R R EID. No, no; someone I knew a very long time ago.
P EARL . Did she look like me?
D R R EID. It was a he. And no, he didn’t resemble you in the slightest – not outwardly – but I dare say the two of you might have struck up a friendship.
P EARL . We might even now. Is he still alive?
D R R EID . In a manner of speaking, yes. He was, I confess, myself. Foolish –
P EARL . Not at all.
D R R EID . Fanciful –
P EARL . Seamus, you’re blushing.
A beat. She’s smiling at him. He returns the smile. Laughs. She joins in
.
D R R EID . Pearl, I too heard that siren call from the bottomless well of deep time, for that is where our ultimate origins are to be found. And in my mind’s eye, I gazed through that microscope of finer and finer distinctions until it seemed all was … one. But those hypnotic depths can paralyze the will. Cast your gaze forward, my friend. Science now calls upon us to stake out the boundaries; to etch boldly those lines between one species and another, lines which Myth and Religion have smudged, and which Nature has only sketchily indicated.
P EARL . Nature is an impressionist, then.
D R R EID . And I would not have a Renoir on my wall for all the tea in China, for what do these Turners and Whistlers do? They glorify Nature’s seductive pull back to the primordial swamp out of which we so recently crawled; a pull to which we are now more susceptible than ever. Pearl, when our great Queen Victoria was born, man could travel no more swiftly than the ancient Egyptians, by horse; now the country is traversed by trains, oceans are plied by steamships; there will soon be horseless carriages clogging the streets and flying machines crowding theheavens. Innoculations save lives, sanitation extends lives, humane laws protect the defective where once they’d have been cruelly cast out to perish. We are at an historic juncture. Thanks to our interventions, Nature no longer holds dominion over our survival; she has lost the power to select the fit and discard the unfit. It’s up to us. We are, like it or not,
in locus Dei
.
P EARL . And what we are to do in God’s place? How are we to know what God’s work is?
D R R EID. It is to forge an earthly paradise; to rouse the infant science of eugenics from its cradle; to engender a blueprint for the New Man: genetically pure, morally uncontaminated.
P EARL . To identify the cause of the ear. And eradicate it.
D R R EID . Yes.
P EARL . As far as we know, there is nothing in the fossil record to indicate man’s descent from dogs.
D R R EID . There is not.
P EARL . Then, assuming the ear is canine, how can it be a throwback? If it were, one would expect it to be ape-like.
D R R EID. All mammals share a common ancestor.
P EARL . Wolves and primates diverged much later; thus if a human being exhibits a canine trait, the chance of it being atavistic is exceedingly slight.
D R R EID . Point taken. Then we are left, merely, with a case of monstrous birth; singular, interesting, but …
[disappointed]
meaningless.
P EARL . Unless …
D R R EID . Unless?
P EARL . Cast your gaze forward, my friend. Might it not be an emergent characteristic? Signalling the rise of a new species.
A beat. The holy grail
.
D R R EID . Nature’s most closely guarded secret.
P EARL . The inner workings of life itself. Exposed.
A beat
.
D R R EID . Marry me, Pearl, and I will take you to the source of the ear.
P EARL . So you do know
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