A rattlesnake hunts mostly at night and does so with the aid of a sensory device which has no parallel elsewhere in the animal world. Between the nostril and the eye is the pit which gives the group as a whole its name. It detects infra-red radiation, that is to say heat, and is so sensitive that it responds to a rise of three hundredths of one ( Read more... )

Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the dumb or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, there aren't ( Read more... )

Many people who are dysgraphic will experience pain while writing. The pain usually starts in the center of the forearm and then spreads along the nervous system to the entire body. This pain can get worse or even appear when a dysgraphic is stressed. Few people who do not have dysgraphia know about this, because many with dysgraphia will not ( Read more... )

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous ( Read more... )

dear friends ( Read more... )

Chapter 1 ( Read more... )

When I was at school I learnt about a King -- one of the Henrys, the one who had Becket murdered -- and he swore when he saw his birthplace burnt by his enemies that because God had done that to him, 'because You have robbed me of the town I love most, the place where I was born and bred, I will rob You of that which You love most in me.' Odd how I ( Read more... )

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"The Good Fairy, who visits the cradles of the privileged, is often the Bad Fairy in a luminous disguise. She comes loaded with presents; but her bounty, all too often, is fatal. To Urbain Grandier, for example, the Good Fairy had brought, along with solid talents, the most dazzling of all gifts, and the most dangerous--eloquence. Spoken by a good ( Read more... )

"This is a special homage the sun pays to me personally," Mr. Palomar is tempted to think, or, rather, the egocentric, megalomaniac ego that dwells in him is tempted to think. But the depressive and self-wounding ego, who dwells with the other in the same container, rebuts: "Everyone with eyes sees the reflection that follows him; illusion of the ( Read more... )