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...they were the eyes
of a madman, but of a madman who can yet calculate upon and arrange his
position in the world. He was mad for his own purposes, and could, for these
same purposes, bind his madness to its proper bounds.
"My brothers and
sisters," he began, "I have come to-night to give you a warning, and
this warning is given to you not as the expression of a personal opinion but as
the declaration of an assumed fact. Disregard it or not as you please, but I
shall have done my duty in pointing out to you the sure and certain meaning of
my message."
"I, a sinner like
the rest of you, live nevertheless in the fear of hell fire. Hell fire has
become, I think, to many of the present generation a mockery and a derision. I
come to tell you that it is no mockery, that it as surely lies there, a blazing
furnace, in front of us as though we saw it with our own eyes ..."
Hugh Walpole – The Captives (1920)
3 comments:
Eric Morecambe was much funnier when he uttered the word 'Hellfire'!
It's that insistence that they are talking fact rather than opinion that is the giveaway, isn't it? I bet you don't hear that type of thing very often among scientists at work.
Scrobs - he was funnier. Coincidentally I saw him on a birthday card this afternoon. It was a photo of Eric and Ernie getting ready for a tennis match. Eric was wearing long baggy shorts and sock suspenders.
Sam - yes, in my experience scientists hardly ever refer to facts in scientific discussions. The nearest they come to it is measurements, but all measurements are considered to have an associated uncertainty.
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