... caprice of the Machine. The sigh at the crises of the Brisbane symphony no longerirritated Vashti; she accepted it as part of the melody. The jarring noise,whether in the head or in the wall, ... clothes us and houses us;through it we speak to one another, through it we see one another, in itwe have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy ofsuperstition: the Machine ... might well declarethat the visit was superfluous. The buttons, the knobs, the reading-deskwith the Book, the temperature, the atmosphere, the illumination - allwere exactly the same. And if Kuno...