The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Longest Journey, by E. M. Forster

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Title: The Longest Journey

Author: E. M. Forster

Posting Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #2604]
Release Date: April, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONGEST JOURNEY ***

Produced by Eve Sobol

THE LONGEST JOURNEY

By E. M. Forster

PART 1 -- CAMBRIDGE

I

"The cow is there," said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it out
over the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell
off. Then he said again, "She is there, the cow. There, now."

"You have not proved it," said a voice.

"I have proved it to myself."

"I have proved to myself that she isn't," said the voice. "The cow is
not there." Ansell frowned and lit another match.

"She's there for me," he declared. "I don't care whether she's there for
you or not. Whether I'm in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow will be
there."

It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. Do
they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or have they a
real existence of their own? It is all very interesting, but at the same
time it is difficult. Hence the cow. She seemed to make things
easier. She was so familiar, so solid, that surely the truths that she
illustrated would in time become familiar and solid also. Is the cow
there or not? This was better than deciding between objectivity and
subjectivity. So at Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, "What
do our rooms look like in the vac.?"

"Look here, Ansell. I'm there--in the meadow--the cow's there. You're
there--the cow's there. Do you agree so far?" "Well?"

"Well, if you go, the cow stops; but if I go, the cow goes. Then what
will happen if you stop and I go?"

Several voices cried out that this was quibbling.

"I know it is," said the speaker brightly, and silence descended again,
while they tried honestly to think the matter out.

Rickie, on whose carpet the matches were being dropped, did not like to
join in the discussion. It was too difficult for him. He could not even
quibble. If he spoke, he should simply make himself a fool. He