Orrery/explanation

Famous quotes containing the words orrery and/or explanation:

    Word of gloom from the war, one day;
    Johnston pressed at the front, they say.
    Little Giffen was up and away;
    A tear—his first—as he bade good-by,
    Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
    “I’ll write, if spared!” There was news of the fight;
    But none of Giffen.—He did not write.
    —Francis Orrery Ticknor (1822–1874)

    We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.
    W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)