7
" we're looking for a planeet on the strength of a song. it's crazy I know, but its the only chance we have to do something useful." ...Evan Wilson said gravely " I think you're as crazy as Heinrich Schliemann - and you know what happened to him!" " What" ..." you don't know what happened to him?" she asked her blue eyes widening in astonishment." Ever read Homer's Iliad, Captain?" ..." I don't know what translation you read Doctor, but there was no Heinrich Schliemann in mine - or in the Odyssey." " That depends on how you look at it." smiling she settled back into her chair and went on," Heinrich Schliemann was from Earth, pre-federation days, and he read Homer too. No, not just read him, believed him. So he set out at his own expense-mind you, I doubt he could have found anyone else to fund such a crazy endeavor - to find Troy, a city that most of the educated people of his time considered pure invention on Homer's part." " And?" " And he found it. Next time you're on earth, stop by the Troy Museum. the artifacts are magnificent, and every one of them was found on the strength of a song. "
15
" As children', wrote Alice Raikes (Mrs. Wilson Fox) in The Times, January 22, 1932, 'we lived in Onslow Square and used to play in the garden behind the houses. Charles Dodgson used to stay with an old uncle there, and walk up and down, his hands behind him, on the strip of lawn. One day, hearing my name, he called me to him saying, " So you are another Alice. I'm very found of Alices. Would you like to come and see something which is rather puzzling?" We followed him into his house which opened, as ours did, upon the garden, into a room full of furniture with a tall mirror standing across one corner.' " Now" , he said giving me an orange, " first tell me which hand you have got that in." " The right" I said. " Now" , he said, " go and stand before that glass, and tell me which hand the little girl you see there has got it in." After some perplexed contemplation, I said, " The left hand." " Exactly," he said, " and how do you explain that?" I couldn't explain it, but seeing that some solution was expected, I ventured, " If I was on the other side of the glass, wouldn't the orange still be in my right hand?" I can remember his laugh. " Well done, little Alice," he said. " The best answer I've heard yet." " I heard no more then, but in after years was told that he said that had given him his first idea for Through the Looking-Glass, a copy of which, together with each of his other books, he regularly sent me. "
17
" Despite all of the time he spent in Big Heart's, Wilson had never come to understand the social lives of Indians. He did not know that, in the Indian world, there is not much social difference between a rich Indian and a poor one. Generally speaking, Indian is Indian. A few who gain wealth and power as lawyers, businessmen, artists, or doctors may marry white people and keep only white friends, but generally Indians of different classes interact freely with one another. Most unemployed or working poor, some with good jobs and steady incomes, but all mixing together. Wilson also did not realize how tribal distinctions were much more important than economic ones. The rich and poor Spokanes may hang out together, but that doesn't necessarily mean the Spokanes are friendly with the Lakota or Navajo or any other tribe. The Sioux still distrust the Crow because they served as scouts for Custer. Hardly anybody likes the Pawnee. Most important, though, Wilson did not understand that the white people who pretend to be Indian are gently teased, ignored, plainly ridiculed, or beaten, depending on their degree of whiteness. "
― Sherman Alexie , Indian Killer
