The Point of View

The Point of View, by Stanley
Grauman Weinbaum

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Title: The Point of View
Author: Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
Release Date: October 5, 2007 [EBook #22895]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from A Martian Odyssey and Others published
in 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.

copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.

THE POINT OF VIEW

"I am too modest!" snapped the great Haskel van Manderpootz, pacing
irritably about the limited area of his private laboratory, glaring at me
the while. "That is the trouble. I undervalue my own achievements, and
thereby permit petty imitators like Corveille to influence the committee
and win the Morell prize."
"But," I said soothingly, "you've won the Morell physics award half a
dozen times, professor. They can't very well give it to you every year."
"Why not, since it is plain that I deserve it?" bristled the professor.
"Understand, Dixon, that I do not regret my modesty, even though it
permits conceited fools like Corveille, who have infinitely less reason
than I for conceit, to win awards that mean nothing save prizes for
successful bragging. Bah! To grant an award for research along such
obvious lines that I neglected to mention them, thinking that even a
Morell judge would appreciate their obviousness! Research on the
psychon, eh! Who discovered the psychon? Who but van
Manderpootz?"
"Wasn't that what you got last year's award for?" I asked consolingly.
"And after all, isn't this modesty, this lack of jealousy on your part, a
symbol of greatness of character?"
"True--true!" said the great van Manderpootz, mollified. "Had such an
affront been committed against a lesser man than myself, he would
doubtless have entered a bitter complaint against the judges. But not I.
Anyway, I know from experience that it wouldn't do any good. And
besides, despite his greatness, van Manderpootz is as modest and
shrinking as a violet." At this point he paused, and his broad red face
tried to look violet-like.

I suppressed a smile. I knew the eccentric genius of old, from the days
when I had been Dixon Wells, undergraduate student of engineering,
and had taken a course in Newer Physics (that is, in Relativity) under
the famous professor. For some unguessable reason, he had taken a
fancy to me, and as a result, I had been involved in several of his
experiments since graduation. There was the affair of the subjunctivisor,
for instance, and also that of the idealizator; in the first of these
episodes I had suffered the indignity of falling in love with a girl two
weeks after she was apparently dead, and in the second, the equal or
greater indignity of falling in love with a girl who didn't exist, never
had existed, and never would exist--in other words, with an ideal.
Perhaps I'm a little susceptible to feminine charms, or rather, perhaps I
used to be, for since the disaster of the idealizator, I have grimly
relegated such follies to the past, much to the disgust of various 'vision
entertainers, singers, dancers, and the like.
So of late I had been spending my days very seriously, trying
wholeheartedly to get to the office on time just once, so that I could
refer to it next time my father accused me of never getting anywhere on
time. I hadn't succeeded yet, but fortunately the N. J. Wells Corporation
was wealthy enough to survive even without the full-time services of
Dixon Wells, or should I say even with them? Anyway, I'm sure my
father preferred to have me late in the morning after an evening with
van Manderpootz than after one with Tips Alva or Whimsy White, or
one of the numerous others of the ladies of the 'vision screen. Even in
the twenty-first century, he retained a lot of old-fashioned ideas.
Van Manderpootz had ceased to remember that he was as modest and
shrinking as a violet. "It has just occurred to me," he announced
impressively, "that years have character much as humans have. This
year, 2015, will be remembered in history as a very stupid year, in
which the Morell prize was given to a nincompoop. Last year, on the
other hand, was a