University of Virginia Library

Mysticism

In one of his more scientific
moods, he relates, "...the
mystical world cannot exist in
the mind as long as the world
around us is clearly discernible
and stable; yet it is compatible
with conditions in which, for
various reasons, normal
perception is interfered with."

Only rarely does the
scientific overshadow the
humanistic in The Time
Concertina, and in several
stories he attacks the pitiful
characters that he occasionally
worked with as a
neuro-physiologist. In
"Fragment On Love", a story
about a hollow Nobel
prize-winner, he points out
that, "Married life seemed to
require an emotional
adaptability which is not
readily obtained in a physics
laboratory."