Sublime

Gray, with whom he had broken completely, became convinced that the illustrious Agassiz mind was in a state of rapid deterioration. “This man,” wrote Gray, “who might have been so useful to science and promised so much here has been for years a delusion, a snare, and a…

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The desk clerk, whose name-plate identified him as G. O. Horner, was a thin, elderly man with protuberant eyes that gave him an expression of intense interest and curiosity. The expression was false. After thirty years in the business, people meant no more to him than individual bees do to a beekeeper. Their differences were lost in a welter of sta

Unlike the professorial Declan, Ben Diamond looks vaguely menacing, with his shaved head and black leather jacket. It takes innate command presence to pull off a look like that at age seventy-three, but Ben still has it.

I saw more of Lyell than of any other man, both before and after my marriage. His mind was characterised, as it appeared to me, by clearness, caution, sound judgment, and a good deal of originality. When I made any remark to him on Geology, he never rested until he saw the whole case clearly, and often made me see it more clearly than I had done be

And although he specifically denied any hierarchical intent, Hunter’s imagery inspired the obstetrician Charles White (1728–1813) to think about race as physical appearance.