Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

“They don’t want any of thah’? They want to know how to stop this great invisible Thing that comes crawling Straight on over their Lands, devouring all in its Path.” “Well! of course it’s a living creature, ’tis all of us, temporarily collected into an Entity, whose Labors none could do alone.” “A tree-slaughtering Animal, with no purpose but to continue creating forever a perfect Corridor over the Land. Its teeth of Steel,— its Jaws, Axmen,— its Life’s Blood, Disbursement. And what of its intentions, beyond killing ev’rything due west of it? do you know? I don’t either.” “Then,— just tidying these thoughts up a bit,— you’re saying this Line has a Will to proceed Westward,— ” “What else are these people suppos’d to believe? Haven’t we been saying, with an hundred Blades all the day long,— This is how far into your land we may strike, this is what we claim to westward. As you see what we may do to Trees, and how little we care,— imagine how little we care for Indians, and what we are prepar’d to do to you. That Influence you have felt, along our Line, that Current strong as a River’s,— we command it. . . . We might make thro’ your Nations an Avenue of Ruin, terrible as the Path of a Whirl-Wind.”