drank out of--proving I
really don't know what.

No, no, nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at
this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really--what
shall we say?--the head of a gigantic old nail, driven in two hundred
years ago, which has now, owing to the patient attrition of many
generations of housemaids, revealed its head above the coat of paint,
and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a
white-walled fire-lit room, what should I gain?--Knowledge? Matter for
further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up.
And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of
witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs,
interrogating shrew-mice and writing down the language of the stars? And
the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for
beauty and health of mind increases.... Yes, one could imagine a very
pleasant world. A quiet, spacious world, with the flowers so red and
blue in the open fields. A world without professors or specialists or
house-keepers with the profiles of policemen, a world which one could
slice with one's thought as a fish slices the water with his fin,
grazing the stems of the water-lilies, hanging suspended over nests of
white sea eggs.... How peaceful it is down here, rooted in the centre of
the world and gazing up through the grey waters, with their sudden
gleams of light, and their reflections--if it were not for Whitaker's
Almanack--if it were not for the Table of Precedency!

I must jump up and see for myself what that mark on the wall really
is--a nail, a rose-leaf, a crack in the wood?

Here is nature once more at her old game of self-preservation. This
train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy,
even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a
finger against Whitaker's Table of Precedency? The Archbishop of
Canterbury is followed by the Lord High Chancellor; the Lord High
Chancellor is followed by the Archbishop of York. Everybody follows
somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to
know who follows whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature
counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; and if you can't be
comforted, if you must shatter this hour of peace, think of the mark on
the wall.

I understand Nature's game--her prompting to take action as a way of
ending an