messages, he clipped his
speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of the Times and pushed
them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as
possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes
that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be
devoured by the flames.
What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes
led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon
as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular
number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be
reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on
the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied
not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters,
leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of
literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or
ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past
was brought