September 24, 2025 • 11 mins
This intriguing book begins with a theoretical exploration of a catastrophic geological event but quickly evolves into a profound reflection on the essence of English identity. As it unfolds, it culminates in a passionate defense of America, offering readers a unique perspective on both nations. (Summary by Judi Mason)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter five, Part three of the Evacuation of England by L. P. Gratacap.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Laircraft had
watched and waited every new development, each changing report, the
wearily studied logs of the ships and steamers, the daily
(00:21):
averages of temperature and rainfall, the swelling disorder in the
climate of the United States, and confirmed rumors of the
hot current which might be the Gulf Stream pouring pouring
northward and hugging the shores of California and Washington and Oregon,
and even repelling the cold from Alaska, supplying a stove
(00:43):
to its shores, which it was promptly surmised, would make
of it a northern paradise. All in a cumulative way,
pointed to one result, the evacuation of England. His speculative
mind hurried on to the picturing of the changed aspects
of the national life, and he felt that for once,
(01:04):
science embedded in the laws of nature, was about to
put to flight the mentality of men and pour the
vials of its confusion over the proud, the boasting defiance
of their thin optimism. And yet what might not opportunity perform,
Perhaps the old receptacles of civilization needed emptying, their garnered
(01:29):
seeds to be more quickly cast upon the winds of
chance to germinate and flower again in the waste places
of the world. And Laocraft hurried to and fro a
small inherited competency had dissolved his business bonds, a lonely
sad man, excited by the thoughts of the world's trembling
(01:51):
position on a new threshold of events, and thus forgetting
the gnawing pains of his own disappointment. During September he
had been at the far north of Scotland and retreated
day by day with the invading cold, fleeing with its
fleeing people southward. On the memorable evening, whose events have
(02:12):
been rehearsed, he had found Edinburgh practically voided and left
to its entombment. The work of getting the people away,
of convincing the incredulous, of providing for the needy, of
deporting the treasures of this great depository had been hastily
and imperfectly done. In spite of Sir John C's useful plans.
(02:34):
It could not be different. Disorder, recriminations, riot and clashes
were inevitable at a moment of such sudden penetrating terror
blocks after blocks of private homes remained with little or
nothing of their rich contents removed. This condition was understood,
and predatory bounds of desperate men broke into them, encamped
(02:57):
in them, and defied expulsion. They left at warnings, and
after filling their improvised camps with coal and stores, prepared
with exultation to enjoy this novelty. Botch, furniture and household
effects had been dumped or deserted in the streets, and
almost any extemporaneous digging in the drifts would uncover books, clothing,
(03:20):
and utensils. A grotesque Cogarthian aspect had been produced by
the retreat of the cats to the houses and their
mingled swarms at windows and on sills, whether they were
strangely followed by hordes of mice and rats, expelled from
the country and filtering into the city in scampering lines.
Before the weather had reached the height of its tempestuous inclemency,
(03:45):
the documentary archives of the city had been locked up
in great safes and left for more propitious days in summer.
This example had been imitated in thousands of the better
class houses as the professional the official still hesitated to
contemplate the monstrous alternative of a permanent sepulture of their
(04:07):
beautiful home. One thing had been accomplished, and it was
well done. The people, those who would leave, had been
gotten away. When on the tenth of September the first
storm of snow began and the mercury sunk to a
few degrees below zero fahrenheit, the suffering became intense. Soon
the railroads were blocked. Enlightened opinion had received its instructions.
(04:30):
The Return of Scotland to the Bondage of snow and
Ice was published, and the publications carried conviction to a
great many. The loss of the Gulf Stream was at
length acknowledged. The impetus of the discovery made the worst
prophecies credible. The intensity of this acquiescence was astounding. It
became a matter of faith that the population should vacate
(04:54):
their own city, and they obeyed instructions unanimously, with a
touching self surrender to Fai. Eight great numbers left Laith
by boats and steamers summoned from London. The railroads responded
with promptitude, though by reason of a sudden access of
energy in the government. Nothing less would have been tolerated
(05:14):
longer than was necessary to confiscate their property and franchises.
The phenomenal desertion of the city by three hundred thousand
souls seemed as foreordained as obligatory in the regime of
events as the setting of the sun or the return
of the seasons. But no activity of all the available
(05:34):
means of transportation would have sufficed to take a population
of more than three hundred thousand men and women in
less than two months away from the city, unless it
had been supplemented by other means, and a strange and
most effective movement accomplished completely. What more recondieter artificial methods
would have failed to secure the frigidists. The group of
(05:59):
fanatical preachers and their followers who found in the present
calamity an opportunity for religious propaganda, or, through the fermentation
and clouded expectations of their own zeal, believed it to
be the expression of a supernatural agency, had begun a
street crusade always in Edinburgh, popular and familiar, to accomplish
(06:21):
the removal of the people. These singular fanatics served a
most benevolent end, and their strange hallucinations wisely aided the
anxious efforts of the authorities. They arrayed themselves in white
and went bareheaded through the streets of the city, exhorting
all who would listen to accept their interpretations of the
(06:42):
approaching judgment. They wove their texts of prophecy with denunciations
of sin, and with the crowding evidences of some astounding
climactic change, repeated with accelerated eagerness in paper, pulpit and forum.
They acquired a tyrannous control over the emotions of the populace.
(07:03):
Then they quickly and with excellent discernment, organized the people
into small regiments, distributed to them white cockades and white rosettes,
and marched them out of the city southward over the
frozen and snow lined roads. This evacuation began scarcely, soon
enough for the best results, but it gave relief. These
(07:26):
moving companies, accompanied with vans and horse carts and vehicles
of every description, gathering numbers along their way, grew in
picturesque confusion as flocks of sheep and herds of cattle
were united to them, or the miners from the coal
pits and the artisans from the factories joined in the vast,
(07:47):
singing army, like the inexorable morality of the French mobs
in the French Revolution, who scornfully resisted the temptations of
their own hunger in a fierce zeal to protect private property.
So when overmastering enthusiasm permeated those rough Scottish nomads and
they marched through the country rigorously, just and honest, there
(08:11):
was suffering and death among them. And nothing could have
been more sublimely pathetic than the improvised services of burial
that were held from time to time along the roads
they crossed. Those who heard its vibrant and powerful melody
will remember the eclipsing magnificence of the hymn sung to
(08:31):
the air of Odesti's Fidelius, which began with the words firm, faithful,
and tried with endless glory crowned. The success of these
Frigidists was phenomenal, but it also clearly arose from the
awful portense of change, which made the stoutest men quail
(08:53):
and not inaptly tested the skepticism of the boldest scoffers.
The revolution in nature had not only affected Scotland its
dire effects were felt in the whole of the Scandinavian area,
and the more southern parts of Europe, which had owed
some measure of their favorable winters to the direct or
(09:13):
intermediate influence of the Gulf Stream, were now made to
feel their sudden penury in its removal. A frightful stagnation
invaded the European markets, a panic of doubt spread confusion everywhere,
and those who controlled the sources of money very soon
checked its use in the avenues of trade, while of necessity,
(09:35):
speculation and the desire for speculation simultaneously vanished. It was
the last train intending to leave Edinburgh that on November
twenty eighth waited for the Provost Marshal and the little
Army of workers, and which Leocraft also expected to take.
The tracks southward had been patrolled by trains of cars
(09:57):
or locomotives for every five month, and these had kept
the way cleared while they reinforced each other at critical junctures.
When this last connection between the muffled city and the
south should be broken, then practically Scotland returned, over the
sweep of sixty thousand years, to a geological phase resembling
(10:19):
that which Geiki, Scotland's own great historian of nature, had
described in these words, all northern Europe and northern America
disappeared beneath a thick crust of ice and snow, and
the glaciers of such regions as Switzerland assumed gigantic proportions.
(10:39):
This great sheet of land ice leveled up the valleys
of Britain and stretched across our mountains and hills down
to the low latitudes of England. Being only one connected
or confluent series of mighty glaciers. The ice crept ever
downwards and onwards from the mountains, following the direction of
the principal valley, and pushing far out to sea, where
(11:02):
it terminated at last in deep water, many miles away
from what now forms the coastline of our country. This
sea of ice was of such extent that the glaciers
of Scandinavia coalesced with those of Scotland upon what is
now the floor of the shallow North Sea, while a
mighty stream of ice flowing outwards from the western seaboard
(11:25):
obliterated the Hebrides and sent its icebergs adrift in the
deep waters of the Atlantic. End of Chapter five, Part
three
Chapter five, Part three of the Evacuation of England by L. P. Gratacap.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Laircraft had
watched and waited every new development, each changing report, the
wearily studied logs of the ships and steamers, the daily
(00:21):
averages of temperature and rainfall, the swelling disorder in the
climate of the United States, and confirmed rumors of the
hot current which might be the Gulf Stream pouring pouring
northward and hugging the shores of California and Washington and Oregon,
and even repelling the cold from Alaska, supplying a stove
(00:43):
to its shores, which it was promptly surmised, would make
of it a northern paradise. All in a cumulative way,
pointed to one result, the evacuation of England. His speculative
mind hurried on to the picturing of the changed aspects
of the national life, and he felt that for once,
(01:04):
science embedded in the laws of nature, was about to
put to flight the mentality of men and pour the
vials of its confusion over the proud, the boasting defiance
of their thin optimism. And yet what might not opportunity perform,
Perhaps the old receptacles of civilization needed emptying, their garnered
(01:29):
seeds to be more quickly cast upon the winds of
chance to germinate and flower again in the waste places
of the world. And Laocraft hurried to and fro a
small inherited competency had dissolved his business bonds, a lonely
sad man, excited by the thoughts of the world's trembling
(01:51):
position on a new threshold of events, and thus forgetting
the gnawing pains of his own disappointment. During September he
had been at the far north of Scotland and retreated
day by day with the invading cold, fleeing with its
fleeing people southward. On the memorable evening, whose events have
(02:12):
been rehearsed, he had found Edinburgh practically voided and left
to its entombment. The work of getting the people away,
of convincing the incredulous, of providing for the needy, of
deporting the treasures of this great depository had been hastily
and imperfectly done. In spite of Sir John C's useful plans.
(02:34):
It could not be different. Disorder, recriminations, riot and clashes
were inevitable at a moment of such sudden penetrating terror
blocks after blocks of private homes remained with little or
nothing of their rich contents removed. This condition was understood,
and predatory bounds of desperate men broke into them, encamped
(02:57):
in them, and defied expulsion. They left at warnings, and
after filling their improvised camps with coal and stores, prepared
with exultation to enjoy this novelty. Botch, furniture and household
effects had been dumped or deserted in the streets, and
almost any extemporaneous digging in the drifts would uncover books, clothing,
(03:20):
and utensils. A grotesque Cogarthian aspect had been produced by
the retreat of the cats to the houses and their
mingled swarms at windows and on sills, whether they were
strangely followed by hordes of mice and rats, expelled from
the country and filtering into the city in scampering lines.
Before the weather had reached the height of its tempestuous inclemency,
(03:45):
the documentary archives of the city had been locked up
in great safes and left for more propitious days in summer.
This example had been imitated in thousands of the better
class houses as the professional the official still hesitated to
contemplate the monstrous alternative of a permanent sepulture of their
(04:07):
beautiful home. One thing had been accomplished, and it was
well done. The people, those who would leave, had been
gotten away. When on the tenth of September the first
storm of snow began and the mercury sunk to a
few degrees below zero fahrenheit, the suffering became intense. Soon
the railroads were blocked. Enlightened opinion had received its instructions.
(04:30):
The Return of Scotland to the Bondage of snow and
Ice was published, and the publications carried conviction to a
great many. The loss of the Gulf Stream was at
length acknowledged. The impetus of the discovery made the worst
prophecies credible. The intensity of this acquiescence was astounding. It
became a matter of faith that the population should vacate
(04:54):
their own city, and they obeyed instructions unanimously, with a
touching self surrender to Fai. Eight great numbers left Laith
by boats and steamers summoned from London. The railroads responded
with promptitude, though by reason of a sudden access of
energy in the government. Nothing less would have been tolerated
(05:14):
longer than was necessary to confiscate their property and franchises.
The phenomenal desertion of the city by three hundred thousand
souls seemed as foreordained as obligatory in the regime of
events as the setting of the sun or the return
of the seasons. But no activity of all the available
(05:34):
means of transportation would have sufficed to take a population
of more than three hundred thousand men and women in
less than two months away from the city, unless it
had been supplemented by other means, and a strange and
most effective movement accomplished completely. What more recondieter artificial methods
would have failed to secure the frigidists. The group of
(05:59):
fanatical preachers and their followers who found in the present
calamity an opportunity for religious propaganda, or, through the fermentation
and clouded expectations of their own zeal, believed it to
be the expression of a supernatural agency, had begun a
street crusade always in Edinburgh, popular and familiar, to accomplish
(06:21):
the removal of the people. These singular fanatics served a
most benevolent end, and their strange hallucinations wisely aided the
anxious efforts of the authorities. They arrayed themselves in white
and went bareheaded through the streets of the city, exhorting
all who would listen to accept their interpretations of the
(06:42):
approaching judgment. They wove their texts of prophecy with denunciations
of sin, and with the crowding evidences of some astounding
climactic change, repeated with accelerated eagerness in paper, pulpit and forum.
They acquired a tyrannous control over the emotions of the populace.
(07:03):
Then they quickly and with excellent discernment, organized the people
into small regiments, distributed to them white cockades and white rosettes,
and marched them out of the city southward over the
frozen and snow lined roads. This evacuation began scarcely, soon
enough for the best results, but it gave relief. These
(07:26):
moving companies, accompanied with vans and horse carts and vehicles
of every description, gathering numbers along their way, grew in
picturesque confusion as flocks of sheep and herds of cattle
were united to them, or the miners from the coal
pits and the artisans from the factories joined in the vast,
(07:47):
singing army, like the inexorable morality of the French mobs
in the French Revolution, who scornfully resisted the temptations of
their own hunger in a fierce zeal to protect private property.
So when overmastering enthusiasm permeated those rough Scottish nomads and
they marched through the country rigorously, just and honest, there
(08:11):
was suffering and death among them. And nothing could have
been more sublimely pathetic than the improvised services of burial
that were held from time to time along the roads
they crossed. Those who heard its vibrant and powerful melody
will remember the eclipsing magnificence of the hymn sung to
(08:31):
the air of Odesti's Fidelius, which began with the words firm, faithful,
and tried with endless glory crowned. The success of these
Frigidists was phenomenal, but it also clearly arose from the
awful portense of change, which made the stoutest men quail
(08:53):
and not inaptly tested the skepticism of the boldest scoffers.
The revolution in nature had not only affected Scotland its
dire effects were felt in the whole of the Scandinavian area,
and the more southern parts of Europe, which had owed
some measure of their favorable winters to the direct or
(09:13):
intermediate influence of the Gulf Stream, were now made to
feel their sudden penury in its removal. A frightful stagnation
invaded the European markets, a panic of doubt spread confusion everywhere,
and those who controlled the sources of money very soon
checked its use in the avenues of trade, while of necessity,
(09:35):
speculation and the desire for speculation simultaneously vanished. It was
the last train intending to leave Edinburgh that on November
twenty eighth waited for the Provost Marshal and the little
Army of workers, and which Leocraft also expected to take.
The tracks southward had been patrolled by trains of cars
(09:57):
or locomotives for every five month, and these had kept
the way cleared while they reinforced each other at critical junctures.
When this last connection between the muffled city and the
south should be broken, then practically Scotland returned, over the
sweep of sixty thousand years, to a geological phase resembling
(10:19):
that which Geiki, Scotland's own great historian of nature, had
described in these words, all northern Europe and northern America
disappeared beneath a thick crust of ice and snow, and
the glaciers of such regions as Switzerland assumed gigantic proportions.
(10:39):
This great sheet of land ice leveled up the valleys
of Britain and stretched across our mountains and hills down
to the low latitudes of England. Being only one connected
or confluent series of mighty glaciers. The ice crept ever
downwards and onwards from the mountains, following the direction of
the principal valley, and pushing far out to sea, where
(11:02):
it terminated at last in deep water, many miles away
from what now forms the coastline of our country. This
sea of ice was of such extent that the glaciers
of Scandinavia coalesced with those of Scotland upon what is
now the floor of the shallow North Sea, while a
mighty stream of ice flowing outwards from the western seaboard
(11:25):
obliterated the Hebrides and sent its icebergs adrift in the
deep waters of the Atlantic. End of Chapter five, Part
three
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