Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“ Then, as Turnbull was still silent, he added:
"The heavens are full of revolution--of the real sort of revolution. All the high things are sinking low and all the big things looking small. All the people who think they are aspiring find they are falling head foremost. And all the people who think they are condescending find they are climbing up a precipice. ”

“ Then, as Turnbull made no answer, his host continued:
"That is the really fine thing about space. It is topsy-turvy. You have only to climb far enough towards the morning star to feel that you are coming down to it. You have only to dive deep enough into the abyss to feel that you are rising. ”

“ Turnbull sprang up as if spurning the steel car from under his feet. "Converted me!" he cried. "What the devil do you mean? I have known him for a month, and I have not retracted a single----"
"This Catholicism is a curious thing," said the man of the cloven chin in uninterrupted reflectiveness, leaning his elegant elbows over the edge of the vessel; "it soaks and weakens men without their knowing it, just as I fear it has soaked and weakened you."
Turnbull stood in an attitude which might well have meant pitching the other man out of the flying ship. ”

“ And above them all the red and raging clouds were like the leaping flags of liberty.
The man with the cloven chin seemed to have a singular power of understanding thoughts; for, as Turnbull felt the whole universe tilt and turn over his head, the stranger said exactly the right thing.
"Doesn't it seem as if everything were being upset?" said he; "and if once everything is upset, He will be upset on top of it." ”

“ Life is sacred--but lives are not sacred. We are improving Life by removing lives. Can you, as a free-thinker, find any fault in that?"
"Yes," said Turnbull with brevity.
"Yet you applaud tyrannicide," said the stranger with rationalistic gaiety. "How inconsistent! It really comes to this: You approve of taking away life from those to whom it is a triumph and a pleasure. But you will not take away life from those to whom it is a burden and a toil."
Turnbull rose to his feet in the car with considerable deliberation, but his face seemed oddly pale. ”

“ Then only he cared to look down into the streets, and saw that they were inflamed with uproar and tossing passions.
"We arrive at a happy moment," said the man steering the ship. "The insurgents are bombarding the city, and a cannon-ball has just hit the cross. Many of the insurgents are simple people, and they naturally regard it as a happy omen."
"Quite so," said Turnbull, in a rather colourless voice. ”

“ Turnbull looked down and saw that the polished car was literally lit up from underneath by the far-flung fires from below. Underneath whole squares and solid districts were in flames, like prairies or forests on fire.
"Dr. Hertz has convinced everybody," said Turnbull's cicerone in a smooth voice, "that nothing can really be done with the real slums. His celebrated maxim has been quite adopted. I mean the three celebrated sentences: 'No man should be unemployed. Employ the employables. ”

“ But when the stranger silently indicated the rope that led to the machine, he found himself pausing and saying: "I can't leave MacIan behind in this den."
"We are going to destroy the Pope and all the kings," said the new-comer. "Would it be wiser to take him with us?"
Somehow the muttering Turnbull found himself in the flying ship also, and it swung up into the sunset.
"All the great rebels have been very little rebels," said the man with the red scarf. "They have been like fourth-form boys who sometimes venture to hit a fifth-form boy. ”

“ On that very place where now there sprawls one drunken wastrel of a pavement artist more or less wishing he were dead--on that very spot there shall in the future be living pictures; there shall be golden girls and boys leaping in the sun. ”

“ Stiffening in himself the masculine but mirthless courage of the atheist, he drew a little nearer to the wall and, catching the man at a slightly different angle of the evening light, could see his face and figure quite plain. ”