Chapter 21 in particular really moved me. White's recounting of Badger's Treatise -- on the story of the creation of the creatures on the fifth and sixth biblical days -- gave me a different image of our Three-In-One Creator, whose love for all they made shines through in the dialogue. I wish the author had been a bit more careful with his pronouns throughout (he got it right toward the end), and though I've always had issues with God setting "man" above the rest of all creation, given that the story was first published in 1939, I guess we have to take it as it is.
"People often ask as an idle question whether the process of
evolution began with the chicken or the egg. Was there an egg out of which the
first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am in a position to
state that the first thing created was the egg.
"When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the
fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even the duck-billed
platypus would eventually emerge, he called the embryos before him, and
saw that they were good.
"Perhaps I ought to explain… that all embryos look very much
the same. They are what you are before you are born, and, whether you are a
peacock or a cameleopard or a man, when you are an embryo you look just
like a peculiarly repulsive and helpless human being…
"The embryos stood up in front of God, with their feeble
hands clasped politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down
respectfully, and God addressed them.
"He said: ‘Now you embryos, here you are, all looking
exactly the same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you are going
to be. When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to grant
you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves into anything
which you think would be useful to you in after life. For instance, at the
moment you can’t dig. Anybody who would like to turn his hands into a pair
of spades of garden forks is allowed to do so. Or, to put it another way, at
present you can only use your mouths for eating with. Anybody who would like to
use his mouth as an offensive weapon, can change it by asking, and be a
corkindrill or a saber-toothed tiger. Now then, step up and choose your tools,
but remember that what you choose you will grow into, and will have to stick
to.’
"All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then,
one by one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two or
three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as flying machines
and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers, or spoons, while others
selected to use their bodies as boats and their hands as oars. We badgers
thought very hard and decided to ask three boons. We wanted to change our skins
for shields, our mouths for weapons, and our arms for garden forks. These boons
were granted to us. Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us
in very queer ones. For instance, one of the lizards decided to swap his whole
body for blotting paper, and one of the toads who lived in the antipodes
decided simply to be a water-bottle.
"The asking and the granting took up two long days – they
were the fifth and sixth, so far as I remember – and at the very end of the sixth
day, just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through all
the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.
"‘Well, Our little man,’ said God. ‘You have waited till
the last, and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking
hard all the time. What can We do for you?’
"‘Please, God,’ said the embryo, ‘I think that You made me in
the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that it
would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay just as I am. I
will not alter any of the parts which You gave to me, for other and doubtless
inferior tools, and I will stay a defenseless embryo all my life, doing my best
to make unto myself a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron and other
materials which you have seen fit to put before me. If I want a boat I will
endeavor to construct it out of trees, and if I want to fly I will put together
a chariot to do it for me. Probably I have been very silly in refusing to take
advantage of your kind offer, but I have done my best to think it over
carefully, and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will
find favour with Yourselves.’
"‘Well done,’ exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones.
‘Here, all you embryos, come here with your beaks and whatnots to look upon Our
first Man… the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of you, and
we have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of Dominion of the
Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and the Fishes of the Sea. Now
let the rest of your get along, and love and multiply, for it is time to knock
off for the week-end. As for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your
life, though a user of tools: you will look like an embryo till they bury you,
but all others will be embryos before your might; eternally undeveloped, you
will always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our
sorrows and to feel some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, and
partly happy, but always proud. Run along then, Man, and do your best. And
listen, Man, before you go…’
"‘Well?’ asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.
"‘We were only going to say,’ said God shyly, twisting their hands together. ‘Well, We were just going to say, God bless you.’"
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