Atlas Shrugged
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
he did not know why he suddenly thought of the oak tree. Nothing had recalled it, but he thought of it and of his summers on the Taggart estate. He had spent most of his childhood with the Taggart Children, and now he worked for them as his father and grandfather had worked for their father and grandfather. The great oak tree had stood on a hill over the Hudson in a lonely spot on the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, age seven, like to come and look at the tree. It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would always stand there. Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk in the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak trees presence. It was a thing that nothing could change or threaten. It was his greatest symbol of strength. One night, lightning struck the oak tree that he saw it the next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as if into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell. It's heart had rotted away long ago. There was nothing inside just that. Then gray dust that was being dispersed by the faintest win. The living power had gone and the shape it left had not been able to stand without it.