Alfred north whitehead adventures of ideas pdf reader

I never asked them any questions on a subject in which I had not a shadow of interest, but I certainly had some curiosity, not of a pecuniary kind, because the matter had always been a riddle as to the hiding-place of the Incas' treasures. With an Englishman whom they knew and trusted, and who, as they also knew, had no wish whatever to discover gold mines, they were a little less reticent.

They look upon that metal as the source of all the misfortunes that have fallen upon their race. If they had, they would have been flogged until they revealed all they knew-that is to say, they would have been flogged to death, for no tortures will wring from an Indian anything he knows about gold. 'The natives have never spoken on the subject at all to the Spaniards. I gathered from them a number of their traditions, and I am convinced that they know of any number of gold mines that were formerly worked, but were blocked up when the Spaniards invaded the country, and have been kept secret ever since. Knocking about as I did, I heard a great deal from the natives (I mean the Indians). I have been more in Peru than in Chili, and as Peru was still in the hands of the Spanish, it would have been impossible for me to go there again as long as the war lasted. I was, as you know, five years out there, and came home when the war broke out between Chili and the Spaniards. 'It is a land with great possibilities at any rate it is a land where you could be understood, and of course it would be folly to go anywhere without a knowledge of the language. 'I don't think you could do better anywhere,' he said slowly. Barnett I don't know that I have ever thought of one place more than another.' 'You have not thought of South America?' he said at last. The elder man did not speak for a minute or two. We were two years off the coast of Spain, and in and out of its ports, and as time hung heavily on our hands, I got up the language partly to amuse myself and partly to be able to talk fluently with my partners at a ball.' 'Yes all my service has been in the Mediterranean. Where is there money to be got? I am equally ready to go to the North Pole or the Equator, to enter the service of an Indian prince, or to start in search of a treasure hidden by the old bucaneers.' Now, you have been knocking about all over the world, I do wish you would give me your advice. 'Well, sir, Miss Fortescue has agreed to wait for me for two years, and of course I am eager to do something, but the question is what? I can sail a ship, but even could I get the command of a merchantman, it would not improve my position in the eyes of the parents of the lady in question. But, as I say, he has always had the reputation of being a hard man, and it is practically certain that he would never allow his daughter to marry a man whom he would regard as next door to a pauper. His three sons are all at the bar, and are rising men, so there was no occasion for him to go on piling up money for them. What his savings were I do not know, but they must be very large.

Besides, I fancy he got hints that in the general opinion of the bar he had had a wonderfully good innings, and it was about time that younger men had a share in it. I believe he would have gone on working till now had he not suddenly come in for a very fine estate, owing to the death, in the course of two or three years, of four men who stood between him and it. I know that he was twice offered the solicitor-generalship, but as he was making two or three times the official salary, he would not take it. For ten years he earned more than any man at the bar. He is not what you might call a genial man, but there is no doubt that he was a splendid lawyer and a wonderful worker. 'It is an awkward case certainly, Prendergast,' the other said 'and upon my word, though I sympathize with you, I cannot blame Fortescue. At first, of course, it didn't matter, for I have enough to live upon but recently I have been fool enough to fall in love with a girl whose parents would never dream of allowing her to marry a half-pay lieutenant of the navy with no chance in the world of getting employed again, for I have no interest whatever.' 'I must do something,' the younger man said, 'for I have been kicking my heels about London since my ship was paid off two years ago. One of them was a man of sixty, the other some five or six and twenty. The room was almost empty, and as they occupied arm-chairs in one corner of it, they were able to talk freely without fear of being overheard. Two men were sitting in the smoking-room of a London club.

Alfred north whitehead adventures of ideas pdf reader