The ape before was a tangle of accumulations,
just as we are. So it was with his forebears. So it has always been. All
life is an endless tangle of accumulations."
"Recognize it," said the doctor.
"And then?" said Sir Richmond, controversially.
"Recognize in particular your own tangle."
"Is my particular tangle very different from the general tangle? (Oh!
Damn this feeble little engine!) I am a creature of undecided will,
urged on by my tangled heredity to do a score of entirely incompatible
things. Mankind, all life, is that."
"But our concern is the particular score of incompatible things you are
urged to do. We examine and weigh--we weigh--"
The doctor was still saying these words when a violent and ultimately
disastrous struggle began between Sir Richmond and the little Charmeuse
car. The doctor stopped in mid-sentence.
It was near Taplow station that the mutual exasperation of man and
machine was brought to a crisis by the clumsy emergence of a laundry
cart from a side road. Sir Richmond was obliged to pull up smartly and
stopped his engine. It refused an immediate obedience to the electric
starter. Then it picked up, raced noisily, disengaged great volumes of
bluish smoke, and displayed an unaccountable indisposition to run on any
gear but the lowest.
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