I suppose that one of our main motives is to show that there is, in
quasi-existence, nothing but the preposterous--or something intermediate
to absolute preposterousness and final reasonableness--that the new is
the obviously preposterous; that it becomes the established and
disguisedly preposterous; that it is displaced, after a while, and is
again seen to be the preposterous. Or that all progress is from the
outrageous to the academic or sanctified, and back to the
outrageous--modified, however, by a trend of higher and higher
approximation to the impreposterous. Sometimes I feel a little more
uninspired than at other times, but I think we're pretty well accustomed
now to the oneness of allness; or that the methods of science in
maintaining its system are as outrageous as the attempts of the damned
to break in. In the _Annual Record of Science_, 1875-241, Prof. Daubree
is quoted: that ashes that had fallen in the Azores had come from the
Chicago fire--
Or the damned and the saved, and there's little to choose between them;
and angels are beings that have not obviously barbed tails to them--or
never have such bad manners as to stroke an angel below the waist-line.
However this especial outrage was challenged: the Editor of the _Record_
returns to it, in the issue of 1876: considers it "in the highest degree
improper to say that the ashes of Chicago were landed in the Azores."
_Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, 22-245:
Account of a white substance, like ashes, that fell at Annoy, France,
March 27, 1908: simply called a curious phenomenon; no attempt to trace
to a terrestrial source.
Flake formations, which may signify passage through a region of
pressure, are common; but spherical formations--as if of things that
have rolled and rolled along planar regions somewhere--are commoner:
_Nature_, Jan. 10, 1884, quotes a Kimberley newspaper:
That, toward the close of November, 1883, a thick shower of ashy matter
fell at Queenstown, South Africa. The matter was in marble-sized balls,
which were soft and pulpy, but which, upon drying, crumbled at touch.
The shower was confined to one narrow streak of land. It would be only
ordinarily preposterous to attribute this substance to Krakatoa--