Page:New lands - (IA newlands00fort).pdf/21

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NEW LANDS
11

ert. There is ahead of us a waste of parallaxes and spectrograms and triangulations. It may be weary going through a waste of astronomic determinations, but that depends—

If, out of a dreary, academic zenith shower betrayals of frailty, folly, and falsification, they will be manna to our malices—

Or sterile demonstrations be warmed by our cheerful cynicisms into delicious little lies—blossoms and fruits of unexpected oases—

Rocks to strike with our suspicions—and the gush of exposures foaming with new implications.

Tryants, dragons, giants—and, if all be dispatched with the skill and the might and the triumph over awful odds of the hero who himself tells his story—

I hear three yells from some hitherto undiscovered, grotesque critter at the very entrance of the desert.