that they'll be classics some day, but I can never accept that a horse
and a barn could float several months in this earth's atmosphere.

The orthodox explanation:

See the _Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society_. It
comes out absolutely for the orthodox explanation--absolutely and
beautifully, also expensively. There are 492 pages in the "Report," and
40 plates, some of them marvelously colored. It was issued after an
investigation that took five years. You couldn't think of anything done
more efficiently, artistically, authoritatively. The mathematical parts
are especially impressive: distribution of the dust of Krakatoa;
velocity of translation and rates of subsidence; altitudes and
persistences--

_Annual Register_, 1883-105:

That the atmospheric effects that have been attributed to Krakatoa were
seen in Trinidad before the eruption occurred:

_Knowledge_, 5-418:

That they were seen in Natal, South Africa, six months before the
eruption.

* * * * *

Inertia and its inhospitality.

Or raw meat should not be fed to babies.

We shall have a few data initiatorily.

I fear me that the horse and the barn were a little extreme for our
budding liberalities.

The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely.

Hailstones, for instance. One reads in the newspapers of hailstones the
size of hens' eggs. One smiles. Nevertheless I will engage to list one
hundred instances, from the _Monthly Weather Review_, of hailstones the
size of hens' eggs. There is an account in _Nature_, Nov. 1, 1894, of
hailstones that weighed almost two pounds each. See Chambers'
Encyclopedia for three-pounders. _Report of the Smithsonian
Institution_, 1870-479--two-pounders authenticated, and six-pounders
reported. At Seringapatam, India, about the year 1800, fell a
hailstone--

I fear me, I fear me: this is one of the profoundly damned. I blurt out
something that should, perhaps, be withheld for several hundred
pages--but that damned thing was the size of an elephant.

We laugh.

Or snowflakes. Size of saucers. Said to have fallen at Nashville, Tenn.,
Jan. 24, 1891. One smiles.

"In Montana, in the winter of 1887, fell snowflakes 15 inches across,
and 8 inches thick." (_Monthly Weather Review_, 1915-73.)

In the topography of intellection, I should say that what we call
knowledge is ignorance surrounded by laughter.

* * * * *

Black rain