conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled In Another Country about Born, York, City with the genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Historical.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Born in New York City in 1915, the author is a cousin of the late President Franklin D. the author.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first three paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In Another Country
  Their arrival, a last steep haul, landed them in a grave uncertainty of feeling, with no words. It was like surfacing: there lay the level water. Come up through the depths they were level now with miles of length and breadth, the far reaches winding away invisibly in many bays and inlets and the inexhaustible hills continuously contributing. The total bulk exceeded comprehension, like a starry sky. From the far head of the lake, or rather from off the hills and harrowing softly over the face of the lake, came a cold breeze. The water lapped steadily at the ramparts under them, the water came on and on, without end, hit against the stone, each wave that ceased in its particular self being at once renewed and replicated. Somewhere in the distance, out of sight, was an infinite spawning of waves against the dam. Quite suddenly their little human enterprise seemed futile. They became anxious for the baby, the necessary energy was lapsing out of them. There was a watchtower halfway along, locked and boarded up, but they hid in its lee, saw to little Gwen and settled then without much regret on the ugly and ordinary way to climb and descend, the Water Board's metalled road. Clouds were driving up, such hurtling clouds, you might stand and watch the world occluded in three minutes.
  No not there. There it wants to go headlong, and be level later. Real lakes are different. They're serene in comparison. When it's too much, they overflow. That's very gentle. But the water up there, even when it's still, all the weight of it doesn't want to lie like that. It wants to be headlong.
  Carrie was feeding the baby by the window. Such a view from there, away from the dam, downstream through oaks and rowans towards the little hidden town. On the draught through the sash window she could smell a bonfire. Always a bonfire, so much to clear and burn. Seth came in, went upstairs, she heard him rummaging, floorboards and ceiling were one and the same. Peaceful feeding; the quiet view, the scent of smoke. Sometimes she dozed as the baby did. Seth went out again, she glimpsed him, what was he carrying? She dozed. Then it broke in on her. Oh no! Oh no, not that! She ran out, her dress undone, Gwen's eyes flung open wide.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In Another Country
  Their arrival, a last steep haul, landed them in a grave uncertainty of feeling, with no words. It was like surfacing: there lay the level water. Come up through the depths they were level now with miles of length and breadth, the far reaches winding away invisibly in many bays and inlets and the inexhaustible hills continuously contributing. The total bulk exceeded comprehension, like a starry sky. From the far head of the lake, or rather from off the hills and harrowing softly over the face of the lake, came a cold breeze. The water lapped steadily at the ramparts under them, the water came on and on, without end, hit against the stone, each wave that ceased in its particular self being at once renewed and replicated. Somewhere in the distance, out of sight, was an infinite spawning of waves against the dam. Quite suddenly their little human enterprise seemed futile. They became anxious for the baby, the necessary energy was lapsing out of them. There was a watchtower halfway along, locked and boarded up, but they hid in its lee, saw to little Gwen and settled then without much regret on the ugly and ordinary way to climb and descend, the Water Board's metalled road. Clouds were driving up, such hurtling clouds, you might stand and watch the world occluded in three minutes.
  No not there. There it wants to go headlong, and be level later. Real lakes are different. They're serene in comparison. When it's too much, they overflow. That's very gentle. But the water up there, even when it's still, all the weight of it doesn't want to lie like that. It wants to be headlong.
  Carrie was feeding the baby by the window. Such a view from there, away from the dam, downstream through oaks and rowans towards the little hidden town. On the draught through the sash window she could smell a bonfire. Always a bonfire, so much to clear and burn. Seth came in, went upstairs, she heard him rummaging, floorboards and ceiling were one and the same. Peaceful feeding; the quiet view, the scent of smoke. Sometimes she dozed as the baby did. Seth went out again, she glimpsed him, what was he carrying? She dozed. Then it broke in on her.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: You should see your website! I tell you, one glance at it, all the anti-emetics available on the NHS would not keep you from throwing up. He calls it his choir of angels extolling you, my sister. And he has posted there the rhapsody he delivered at the Service of Thanksgiving, for the world to see: Charis is in the Light. Charis was brave. Charis prays for us. Charis asks our help to create a Church of Light. Charis is the Butterfly. For after the scattering of your ashes on the effulgent surface of the Sacred River Alph, a butterfly landed on the basket which had contained them and stayed there for a while, quietly. In truth, my dearest, being dead, you have brought out the very best of the worst in him, said Zoë. But this will make you laugh. If you really are safe and sound in the arms of the Virgin Mary this will make the pair of you wet yourselves laughing. Remember that photo of you and me and his daughter Allegra (!) dancing? Was it in Powys, when you returned from the waterfalls? Or at Beaurepaire, before I gave up the unequal struggle, and we were dancing the crane dance, the labyrinth dance, that turn by turn was to bring us deeper into Gaia's mysteries? Oh that dance! There were three of us, Charis, Zoë and the radiant child Allegra, all dancing the crane dance in pretty dresses. And he emails me to say he has airbrushed me out on the grounds that I was looking miserable and spoiled the picture. So now there are two, Allegra and Aunt Charis (deceased), with a hole between them where poor Zoë was till our brother in Christ Jesus disappeared her because she had a face like a wet Whit Week. And that, sweet sis, is how the website opens, on a nice big lie, and goes on that excellent beginning from strength to strength through the ninety-nine delusions with links along the way to multitudes more, said Zoë.
  Is there Internet in Heaven? Do you spend much time online? I tell you, Charis, Zoë said, it would take eternity and then some to mark and inwardly digest the half of what's already there under your beloved name. The Other Photograph pops up everywhere. I mean the one of you striding purposefully up the long slope towards Seaford Head, all alone, my dearest, and nothing before you but the empty slope, the summit and the sky. Taken a couple of years ago, I believe, in May or June, by that fat holistic potter—Angie? Fran? Isolde?—who told you she could heal you. And there you are climbing out of the busy little town where hundreds of lucky people are having a nice time in ordinary ways. No sooner were you named in the local newspapers, the fat lady emails it, the photo, to our Felix and from him in seconds it goes forth and multiplies and humans in all five continents have it on their screens. Did he weep much for you when you were living, Charis? I don't remember that he did. But now he shows you to strangers on his BlackBerry and takes off his glasses and dabs at his eyes with a snowy white handkerchief and says what a comfort that photograph of you climbing Seaford Head in the days of your almost hopefulness has been to him and Father. Tell me, Charis, did you ever understand our brother Felix? Does Mary? Does the Trinity, all three of them combined and thinking hard? In truth though it is an excellent photograph, said Zoë. You are turning away, you are heading off up the long slope alone. I have never been there and I never shall but I imagine the air to be a pure delight and surely there are skylarks and the flowers that love the chalk and all around you space and the feeling of the nearness of the sea. But the white face, the sheerly final face, the flatly vertical height and fall, how could a human being employ a thing so utterly inhuman? Don't worry, big sister, I shan't go anywhere near the place.
  Father skipped the ceremony at the Sacred River, Zoë said. But he attended your cremation and the Service of Thanksgiving, leaving early, of course, to drive back to Ealing and put Mother to bed. To annoy Felix, I asked that she, Mother, be remembered with everyone else among the prayers because if anyone is in hell, in this world or the next, she is. Felix wouldn't allow it, needless to say. He said it would not be appropriate. He said he had consulted the Carmel Fathers and had been told by them that it made no sense theologically to pray for a soul in hell. So I thanked our Felix, Zoë said, for saving the congregation from doing something nonsensical.
  Email, mobile phones and the Internet are a marvellous facility, Zoë said. Here I am in Swindon miles away all on my own and nonetheless au courant. Alas and God help me, it was the last thing I wanted and surely not your intention but doing what you did has brought us closer, me and the blessed Felix. Now the Word comes from him to me in superabundance. As do the images. He sent me one of those slide shows so I can view you through the years approaching nearer and nearer to that sweet summer morning in the Year of our Lord we are still suffering in. I see you on a trike in Ealing, setting off, and the look on your face is more fearful than hopeful. Your schoolgirl years distress me. By then it was obvious. And you on courses and retreats, you dancing, singing, painting, drumming, weaving, making masks and pots and doing tai-chi and meditating among bare ruined choirs or in a glade. So many stations, photograph by photograph, sent to me by Felix, of your road to Seaford Head.
  And would you believe this? (Of course you would.) When he flew in from Boston to visit you on the trauma ward he called at Martha's first and phoned me from the place itself, as he called it, her attic room, with the neighbour who found you, the Good Samaritan, standing by him at the open window. The sill is quite high, he said. You had to put a chair there to climb on to it. He said that beyond the damaged roof he had a view of the garden, the blossom, the little white clouds on a blue sky and to him they were proof perfect of the love of God. He did not mention the psychiatric hospital, whose beech trees, lawns and wards are also visible from that window, just over the wall at the bottom of the garden, as you and I, my dearest, know. But there was, he said, a blackbird—he thought it was a blackbird—singing from the rooftop above his head. He held the phone so I could hear it, sister.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He calls it his choir of angels extolling you, my sister. And he has posted there the rhapsody he delivered at the Service of Thanksgiving, for the world to see: Charis is in the Light. Charis was brave. Charis prays for us. Charis asks our help to create a Church of Light. Charis is the Butterfly. For after the scattering of your ashes on the effulgent surface of the Sacred River Alph, a butterfly landed on the basket which had contained them and stayed there for a while, quietly. In truth, my dearest, being dead, you have brought out the very best of the worst in him, said Zoë. But this will make you laugh. If you really are safe and sound in the arms of the Virgin Mary this will make the pair of you wet yourselves laughing. Remember that photo of you and me and his daughter Allegra (!) dancing? Was it in Powys, when you returned from the waterfalls? Or at Beaurepaire, before I gave up the unequal struggle, and we were dancing the crane dance, the labyrinth dance, that turn by turn was to bring us deeper into Gaia's mysteries? Oh that dance! There were three of us, Charis, Zoë and the radiant child Allegra, all dancing the crane dance in pretty dresses. And he emails me to say he has airbrushed me out on the grounds that I was looking miserable and spoiled the picture. So now there are two, Allegra and Aunt Charis (deceased), with a hole between them where poor Zoë was till our brother in Christ Jesus disappeared her because she had a face like a wet Whit Week. And that, sweet sis, is how the website opens, on a nice big lie, and goes on that excellent beginning from strength to strength through the ninety-nine delusions with links along the way to multitudes more, said Zoë.
  Is there Internet in Heaven? Do you spend much time online? I tell you, Charis, Zoë said, it would take eternity and then some to mark and inwardly digest the half of what's already there under your beloved name. The Other Photograph pops up everywhere. I mean the one of you striding purposefully up the long slope towards Seaford Head, all alone, my dearest, and nothing before you but the empty slope, the summit and the sky. Taken a couple of years ago, I believe, in May or June, by that fat holistic potter—Angie? Fran? Isolde?—who told you she could heal you. And there you are climbing out of the busy little town where hundreds of lucky people are having a nice time in ordinary ways. No sooner were you named in the local newspapers, the fat lady emails it, the photo, to our Felix and from him in seconds it goes forth and multiplies and humans in all five continents have it on their screens. Did he weep much for you when you were living, Charis? I don't remember that he did. But now he shows you to strangers on his BlackBerry and takes off his glasses and dabs at his eyes with a snowy white handkerchief and says what a comfort that photograph of you climbing Seaford Head in the days of your almost hopefulness has been to him and Father. Tell me, Charis, did you ever understand our brother Felix? Does Mary? Does the Trinity, all three of them combined and thinking hard? In truth though it is an excellent photograph, said Zoë. You are turning away, you are heading off up the long slope alone. I have never been there and I never shall but I imagine the air to be a pure delight and surely there are skylarks and the flowers that love the chalk and all around you space and the feeling of the nearness of the sea. But the white face, the sheerly final face, the flatly vertical height and fall, how could a human being employ a thing so utterly inhuman? Don't worry, big sister, I shan't go anywhere near the place.
  Father skipped the ceremony at the Sacred River, Zoë said. But he attended your cremation and the Service of Thanksgiving, leaving early, of course, to drive back to Ealing and put Mother to bed. To annoy Felix, I asked that she, Mother, be remembered with everyone else among the prayers because if anyone is in hell, in this world or the next, she is. Felix wouldn't allow it, needless to say. He said it would not be appropriate. He said he had consulted the Carmel Fathers and had been told by them that it made no sense theologically to pray for a soul in hell. So I thanked our Felix, Zoë said, for saving the congregation from doing something nonsensical.
  Email, mobile phones and the Internet are a marvellous facility, Zoë said. Here I am in Swindon miles away all on my own and nonetheless au courant. Alas and God help me, it was the last thing I wanted and surely not your intention but doing what you did has brought us closer, me and the blessed Felix. Now the Word comes from him to me in superabundance. As do the images. He sent me one of those slide shows so I can view you through the years approaching nearer and nearer to that sweet summer morning in the Year of our Lord we are still suffering in. I see you on a trike in Ealing, setting off, and the look on your face is more fearful than hopeful. Your schoolgirl years distress me. By then it was obvious. And you on courses and retreats, you dancing, singing, painting, drumming, weaving, making masks and pots and doing tai-chi and meditating among bare ruined choirs or in a glade. So many stations, photograph by photograph, sent to me by Felix, of your road to Seaford Head.
  And would you believe this? (Of course you would.) When he flew in from Boston to visit you on the trauma ward he called at Martha's first and phoned me from the place itself, as he called it, her attic room, with the neighbour who found you, the Good Samaritan, standing by him at the open window. The sill is quite high, he said. You had to put a chair there to climb on to it. He said that beyond the damaged roof he had a view of the garden, the blossom, the little white clouds on a blue sky and to him they were proof perfect of the love of God. He did not mention the psychiatric hospital, whose beech trees, lawns and wards are also visible from that window, just over the wall at the bottom of the garden, as you and I, my dearest, know. But there was, he said, a blackbird—he thought it was a blackbird—singing from the rooftop above his head. He held the phone so I could hear it, sister.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The old man and woman had left the kitchen garden. They were crossing the dandelion lawn towards the house. They halted, looked up, the old man pointed. Bats, said Mr. Carlton. It's not us he's looking at. He has seen the bats. The swallows have roosted, the deer have gone to where the moss is wider and perhaps there is still woodland for them to hide in. Did you see the deer? I've been watching the swallows. And now the bats. All those creatures have come out from under the motorway. I'm pregnant, the young woman said. I only found out yesterday. I went to tell my mum and dad. I wanted to tell them face to face. And now I'm stuck here. I don't want to be away from home in the night.
  The old man and woman went into their house. In rooms to the left and right of the door the lights came on. Oh they've gone in, said the young woman next to Mr. Carlton at the barrier. They've shut the door. In the room on the left, on view, the old woman busied herself for a while. Then that light went out. She appeared at the window of the room on the right, stood there for a moment, now without her shawl, then drew the curtains.
  The young woman at the barrier took Mr. Carlton's arm. I'm frightened, she said. You don't mind, do you? What do you think has happened? It must be very serious to close both carriageways. I heard a man say it was a fire. And somebody else said ten minutes earlier we'd have been in it. My husband said not to worry, they'll clear it eventually, if we're here much longer they'll bring food and water round. He's right, said Mr. Carlton, patting her hand that was gripping his arm. We're quite safe here. How still it is. I was wondering do they have grandchildren who visit occasionally. I hate it when you're on a train, the young woman said, and you stop in the middle of nowhere and after a long time they tell you there's a fatality on the line. Yes, said Mr. Carlton, that is a horrible expression. And everybody's only wanting to get home, the young woman continued, and they don't care about the fatality in person. But it's horrible sitting there knowing that someone is chopped to pieces further up. And this is worse than that. It has blocked both carriageways.
  The after-lingerings of a midsummer sunset last forever. Infinitely slowly pallor passes towards blackness. The vanishing light edges north, smoulders on earth long after the source of it has gone below. But with an utter abruptness the light went out in the old couple's downstairs room. They're going to bed, the young woman at the barrier said. Mr. Carlton shuddered. The bedroom light came on. The old woman in her floral dress stood at the window illumined and looking out. Perhaps she stood there every night, every soft summer night at least, and looked down on the close and the kitchen garden for a minute or two, taking it in. She drew the curtains. You're crying, said the young woman holding Mr. Carlton's arm. What is it? You're crying? What's the matter? No, no, Mr. Carlton replied. I have two grown-up daughters, older than you, with children, a great joy, as yours will be. No, no, all is well. The light in the bedroom went out. They're going to sleep, the young woman said. Is it that? Is that why you're crying? Yes, said Mr. Carlton. It's that.
  The southbound carriageway opened. Down it in a flickering torrent of blue lights the police cars and the ambulances screamed. After them, bulkier but quietly, came the fire engines. Carnage, said Mr. Carlton. A few minutes later the normal traffic followed, three lanes of it, headlong, heedless. Now we'll be moving soon, said Mr. Carlton. Do you want to go back to your car? I'll stay here, if you don't mind, until it starts, said the young woman still gripping Mr. Carlton's arm.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Carlton's arm. They were crossing the dandelion lawn towards the house. They halted, looked up, the old man pointed. Bats, said Mr. Carlton. It's not us he's looking at. He has seen the bats. The swallows have roosted, the deer have gone to where the moss is wider and perhaps there is still woodland for them to hide in. Did you see the deer? I've been watching the swallows. And now the bats. All those creatures have come out from under the motorway. I'm pregnant, the young woman said. I only found out yesterday. I went to tell my mum and dad. I wanted to tell them face to face. And now I'm stuck here. I don't want to be away from home in the night.
  The old man and woman went into their house. In rooms to the left and right of the door the lights came on. Oh they've gone in, said the young woman next to Mr. Carlton at the barrier. They've shut the door. In the room on the left, on view, the old woman busied herself for a while. Then that light went out. She appeared at the window of the room on the right, stood there for a moment, now without her shawl, then drew the curtains.
  The young woman at the barrier took Mr. Carlton's arm. I'm frightened, she said. You don't mind, do you? What do you think has happened? It must be very serious to close both carriageways. I heard a man say it was a fire. And somebody else said ten minutes earlier we'd have been in it. My husband said not to worry, they'll clear it eventually, if we're here much longer they'll bring food and water round. He's right, said Mr. Carlton, patting her hand that was gripping his arm. We're quite safe here. How still it is. I was wondering do they have grandchildren who visit occasionally. I hate it when you're on a train, the young woman said, and you stop in the middle of nowhere and after a long time they tell you there's a fatality on the line. Yes, said Mr. Carlton, that is a horrible expression. And everybody's only wanting to get home, the young woman continued, and they don't care about the fatality in person. But it's horrible sitting there knowing that someone is chopped to pieces further up. And this is worse than that. It has blocked both carriageways.
  The after-lingerings of a midsummer sunset last forever. Infinitely slowly pallor passes towards blackness. The vanishing light edges north, smoulders on earth long after the source of it has gone below. But with an utter abruptness the light went out in the old couple's downstairs room. They're going to bed, the young woman at the barrier said. Mr. Carlton shuddered. The bedroom light came on. The old woman in her floral dress stood at the window illumined and looking out. Perhaps she stood there every night, every soft summer night at least, and looked down on the close and the kitchen garden for a minute or two, taking it in. She drew the curtains. You're crying, said the young woman holding Mr. Carlton's arm. What is it? You're crying? What's the matter? No, no, Mr. Carlton replied. I have two grown-up daughters, older than you, with children, a great joy, as yours will be. No, no, all is well. The light in the bedroom went out. They're going to sleep, the young woman said. Is it that? Is that why you're crying? Yes, said Mr. Carlton. It's that.
  The southbound carriageway opened. Down it in a flickering torrent of blue lights the police cars and the ambulances screamed. After them, bulkier but quietly, came the fire engines. Carnage, said Mr. Carlton. A few minutes later the normal traffic followed, three lanes of it, headlong, heedless. Now we'll be moving soon, said Mr. Carlton. Do you want to go back to your car? I'll stay here, if you don't mind, until it starts, said the young woman still gripping Mr.The old man and woman had left the kitchen garden.