BOOK OF THE DAMNED 197 



"I have never made a more valid observation, nor one more 

 free from doubt." 



He's damned anyway. 



We shall have some data that will not live up to most rigorous 

 requirements, but, if any one would like to read how carefully and 

 minutely these two sets of observations were made, see Prof. 

 Swift's detailed description in the Am. Jour. Sci., 116-313; and the 

 technicalities of Prof. Watson's observations in Monthly Notices, 



38-525- 



Our own acceptance upon dirigible worlds, which is assuredly 

 enough, more nearly real than attempted concepts of large planets 

 relatively near this earth, moving in orbits, but visible only occa- 

 sionally; which more nearly approximates to reasonableness than 

 does wholesale slaughter of Swift and Watson and Fritsche and 

 Stark and De Cuppis but our own acceptance is so painful to 

 so many minds that, in another of the charitable moments that 

 we have now and then for the sake of contrast, we offer relief: 



The things seen high in the sky by Swift and Watson 



Well, only two months before the horse and the barn 



We go on with more observations by astronomers, recognizing 

 that it is the very thing that has given them life, sustained them, 

 held them together, that has crushed all but the quasi-gleam of inde- 

 pendent life out of them. Were they not systematized, they could 

 not be at all, except sporadically and without sustenance. They 

 are systematized: they must not vary frcm the conditions of the 

 system: they must not break away for themselves. 



The two great commandments: 



Thou shalt not break Continuity; 



Thou shalt try. 



We go on with these disregarded data, some of which, many of 

 which, are of the highest degree of acceptability. It is the System 

 that pulls back its variations, as this earth is pulling back the 

 Matterhorn. It is the System that nourishes and rewards, and also 

 freezes out life with the chill of disregard. We do note that, before 

 excommunication is pronounced, orthodox journals do liberally 

 enough record unassimilable observations. 



All things merge away into everything else. 



That is Continuity. 



So the System merges away and evades us when we try to focus 

 against it. 



We have complained a great deal. At least we are not so dull 



