Cream of the Crop 26/Cream of the Crop 26.iso/educate/fastyp51.zip/TYP.V51/FT4505.TYP

Text File | 1997-06-01 | 19KB | 228 lines

##FT4505.TYP##
// Copyright 1997 Trendtech Corporation, All Rights Reserved
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Of course you know what is meant by a magnifying glass- one of those round spectacle-glasses that make
everything look a hundred times bigger than it is?ööWhen any one takes one of these and holds it to his eye,
and looks at a drop of water from the pond yonder, he sees above a thousand wonderful creatures that are
otherwise never discerned in the water.ööBut there they are, and it is no delusion.ööIt almost looks like a great
plateful of spiders jumping about in a crowd.ööAnd how fierce they are!ööThey tear off each other's legs.ööand
arms and bodies, before and behind; and yet they are merry and joyful in their way.öö
Now, there once was an old man whom all the people called Kribble-Krabble, for that was his name.ööHe
always wanted the best of everything, and when he could not manage it otherwise, he did it by magic.öö
There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his eye, and looked at a drop of water that had been
taken out of a puddle by the ditch.ööBut what a kribbling and krabbling was there!ööAll the thousands of little
creatures hopped and sprang and tugged at one another, and ate each other
up.
"That is horrible!" said old Kribble-Krabble.öö"Can one not persuade them to live in peace and quietness, so
that each one may mind his own business?"
And he thought it over and over, but it would not do, and so he had recourse to
magic.
"I must give them color, that they may be seen more plainly," said he; and he poured something like a little
drop of red wine into the drop of water, but it was witches' blood from the lobes of the ear, the finest kind,
at ninepence a drop.ööAnd now the wonderful little creatures were pink all over.ööIt looked like a whole town
of naked wild men.
"What have you there?" asked another old magician, who had no name- and that was the best thing about
him.
"Yes, if you can guess what it is," said Kribble-Krabble, "I'll make you a present of it."
But it is not so easy to find out if one does not know.
And the magician who had no name looked through the
magnifying-glass.
It looked really like a great town reflected there, in which all the people were running about without clothes.öö

It was terrible!ööBut it was still more terrible to see how one beat and pushed the other, and bit and hacked,
and tugged and mauled him.ööThose at the top were being pulled down, and those at the bottom were
struggling upwards.öö    "Look!öölook!ööhis leg is longer than mine!ööBah!ööAway with it!ööThere is one who has a
little bruise.ööIt hurts him, but it shall hurt him still more."
And they hacked away at him, and they pulled at him, and ate him up, because of the little bruise.ööAnd there
was one sitting as still as any little maiden, and wishing only for peace and quietness.ööBut now she had to
come out, and they tugged at her, and pulled her about, and ate her
up.
"That's funny!" said the magician.
"Yes; but what do you think it is?" said Kribble-Krabble.öö"Can you find that
out?"
"Why, one can see that easily enough," said the other.öö"That's Paris, or some other great city, for they're all
alike.ööIt's a great city!"
"It's a drop of puddle water!" said Kribble-Krabble.

-- "Fairy Tales Of Hans Christian Andersen: The Drop Of Water", 1872, by Hans Christian
Andersen
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I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county,
Maryland.öö I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.öö
By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of
most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant.öö I do not remember to have ever met a
slave who could tell of his birthday.öö They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest- time,
cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time.öö A want of information concerning my own was a source of
unhappiness to me even during childhood.öö The white children could tell their ages.öö I could not tell why I
ought to be deprived of the same privilege.öö I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master
concerning it.öö He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence
of a restless spirit.öö The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty- eight
years of age.öö I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen
years old.

-- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,  Written by
Himself
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We must, in the next place, investigate the subject of the dream, and first inquire to which of the faculties of
the soul it presents itself, i.e. whether the affection is one which pertains to the faculty of intelligence or to
that of sense-perception; for these are the only faculties within us by which we acquire knowledge.öö
If, then, the exercise of the faculty of sight is actual seeing, that of the auditory faculty, hearing, and, in
general that of the faculty of sense-perception, perceiving; and if there are some perceptions common to the
senses, such as figure, magnitude, motion, etc., while there are others, as color, sound, taste, peculiar [each
to its own sense]; and further, if all creatures, when the eyes are closed in sleep, are unable to see, and the
analogous statement is true of the other senses, so that manifestly we perceive nothing when asleep; we may
conclude that it is not by sense-perception we perceive a dream.
But neither is it by opinion that we do so.öö For [in dreams] we not only assert, e.g. that some object
approaching is a man or a horse [which would be an exercise of opinion], but that the object is white or
beautiful, points on which opinion without sense-perception asserts nothing either truly or falsely.öö It is,
however, a fact that the soul makes such assertions in sleep.öö We seem to see equally well that the
approaching figure is a man, and that it is white.öö [In dreams], too, we think something else, over and above
the dream presentation, just as we do in waking moments when we perceive something; for we often also
reason about that which we perceive.öö So, too, in sleep we sometimes have thoughts other than the mere
phantasms immediately before our minds.öö This would be manifest to any one who should attend and try,
immediately on arising from sleep, to remember [his dreaming experience].öö There are cases of persons who
have seen such dreams, those, for example, who believe themselves to be mentally arranging a given list of
subjects according to the mnemonic rule.öö They frequently find themselves engaged in something else
besides the dream, viz.öö in setting a phantasm which they envisage into its mnemonic position.öö Hence it is
plain that not every 'phantasm' in sleep is a mere dream-image, and that the further thinking which we
perform then is due to an exercise of the faculty of opinion.

"On Dreams", 350 BC , by Aristotle, translated by J. I. Beare
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Suddenly Weena came very close to my side.öö So suddenly that she startled me.öö Had it not been for her I do
not think I should have noticed that the floor of the gallery sloped at all.öö
The end I had come in at was quite above ground, and was lit by rare slit-like windows.öö As you went down
the length, the ground came up against these windows, until at last there was a pit like the "area" of a
London house before each, and only a narrow line of daylight at the top.öö I went slowly along, puzzling
about the machines, and had been too intent upon them to notice the gradual diminution of the light, until
Weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention.öö Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last into a
thick darkness.öö I hesitated, and then, as I looked round me, I saw that the dust was less abundant and its
surface less even.öö Further away towards the dimness, it appeared to be broken by a number of small narrow
footprints.öö My sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived at that.öö I felt that I was wasting
my time in this academic examination of machinery.öö I called to mind that it was already far advanced in the
afternoon, and that I had still no weapon, no refuge, and no means of making a fire.öö And then down in the
remote blackness of the gallery I heard a peculiar pattering, and the same odd noises I had heard down the
well.

"The Time Machine", H. G. Wells
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As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to
embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing.öö For my mind was
made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about
everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me.öö Besides though New
Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old
Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original- the Tyre of this Carthage;- the
place where the first dead American whale was stranded.öö Where else but from Nantucket did those
aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan?ööAnd where but
from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported
cobblestones- so goes the story- to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to
risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?

"Moby Dick", 1851, by Herman Melville
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Sing hey!ööfor the bath at close of day 
that washes the weary mud away!öö
A look is he that will not sing: 
O!ööWater Hot is a noble thing!öö

O!ööSweet is the sound of falling rain, 
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain; 
but better than rain or rippling streams 
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.öö

O!ööWater cold we may pour at need 
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed; 
but better is Beer, if drink we lack, 
and Water Hot poured down the back.öö

O!ööWater is fair that leaps on high 
in a fountain white beneath the sky; 
but never did fountain sound so sweet 
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!

"The Lord of the Rings: The Bath Song", by J.R.R.Tolkien
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When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one  people to dissolve the political bonds
which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.öö
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.öö That
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed.öö That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness.öö  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for
light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed.öö  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces
a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future security.öö  --Such has been the patient sufferance of
these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of
government.öö  The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.öö  To prove
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.öö
-- Preamble to the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
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In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of
persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the
first peopling of any country, or of the world.ööIn this state of natural liberty, society will be their first
thought.ööA thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants,
and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of
another, who in his turn requires the same.ööFour or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in
the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing
any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in
the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way.ööDisease,
nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from
living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.öö
Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the
reciprocal blessings of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government
unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to
vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration,
which bound them together in common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each
other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply
the defect of moral virtue.
-- "Common Sense", Thomas Paine
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My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my
design.öö He called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated
very warmly with me upon this subject.öö He asked me what reasons more than a mere wandering inclination
I had for leaving my father's house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a
prospect of raising my fortunes by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure.öö He told me it
was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went
abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out
of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me, or too far below me; that mine was
the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long
experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries
and hardships, the labor and sufferings, of the mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the
pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind.öö He told me I might judge of the happiness
of this state by one thing, viz., that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have
frequently lamented the miserable consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been
placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his
testimony to this as the just standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches.öö

"Robinson Crusoe", 1719, by Daniel Defoe
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The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex.öö Their estate was large, and their residence was at
Norland Park, in the center of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a
manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.öö The late owner of this
estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who, for many years of his life, had a
constant companion and housekeeper in his sister.öö But her death, which happened ten years before his own,
produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the
family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to
whom he intended to bequeath it.öö In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old
gentleman's days were comfortably spent.öö His attachment to them all increased.öö The constant attention of
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from
goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness
of the children added a relish to his existence.
By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his present lady three daughters.öö The son, a
steady respectable young man, was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large,
and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age.öö By his own marriage, likewise, which happened
soon afterwards, he added to his wealth.öö To him, therefore, the succession to the Norland estate was not so
really important as to his sisters; for their fortune, independent of what might arise to them from their
father's inheriting that property, could be but small.öö Their mother had nothing, and their father only seven
thousand pounds in his own disposal; for the remaining moiety of his first wife's fortune was also secured to
her child, and he had only a life-interest in it.

"Sense And Sensibility", 1811, by Jane Austen