Caustic

caustic:(in optics) The curve or surface formed by the reflection of parallel rays of light in a large-aperture concave mirror. The apex of the caustic lies at the principal focus of the mirror. Such a curve can sometimes be seen on the surface of the liquid in a cup as a result of reflection by the curved walls of the cup. A similar curve is formed by a convex lens with spherical surfaces refracting parallel rays of light.

Quotation from: A Dictionary of Physics. Ed. John Daintith. Oxford University Press, 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.

The Truth is Sometimes Told

An historian must assume that truth is sometimes told. He must, assuming that, argue from probabilities, and, keeping in view the social forces operating in his own time, ask himself what was likely to have occurred in the past. This is what we see done. There are histories of England, of Australia, of the Jews. Now the books of the Bible that relate history are few. And unless we are to believe that all the events recorded as historical are absolutely true, the history books do not seem to me of a very high order. There is a want of philosophical grasp and outlook. In many cases they are dry chronicles of kings and war, and of the efforts of priests and prophets. They lack all the most interesting parts of history the record of the rise and development of the morals, the intelligence, the industry, and the wealth of the nation. But, as it happens, it is only of late that it has been recognised that true history is not wholly concerned about kings and battles.

…

The Bible was not written all at once. With it, as with other things, we behold a growth. It partakes, therefore, of the nature of other works. We do not find anything has happened like the fabled Minerva. Wisdom does not come all at once. The history of the Bible shows that it was only bit by bit compiled, and its history is the history of everything around us.

Quotation from: Address delivered by Robert Stout at the opening of the 1880 session of the Freethought Association.[Dunedin, New Zealand]

Otago Daily Times 21 February 1880

Mrs Bates sat in her rocking-chair

While, for an hour or more, the children played subduedly, intent, fertile of invention, united in fear of their mother’s wrath and in dread of their father’s homecoming. Mrs Bates sat in her rocking-chair making a ‘singlet’ of thick, cream coloured flannel, which gave a dull wounded sound as she tore off the grey edge. She worked at her sewing with energy, listening to the children, and her anger wearied itself, lay down to rest, opening its eyes from time to time and steadily watching, its ears raised to listen. Sometimes, even her anger quailed and shrank, and the mother suspended her sewing, tracing the footsteps that thudded along the sleepers outside; she would life her head sharply to bid the children “hush,” but she recovered herself in time, and the footsteps went past the gate, and the children were not flung out of their play-world.

...

Then she lighted a candle and went into the tiny room. The air was cold and damp, but she could not make a fire, there was no fireplace. She set down the candle and looked round. The candle-light glittered on the lustre-glasses, on the two vases that held some of the pink chrysanthemums in the room. Elizabeth stood looking at the flowers. She turned away, and calculated whether there would be room to lay him on the floor, between the couch and the chiffonier. She pushed the chairs aside. There would be room to lay him down and to step around him. Then she fetched an old red table-cloth, and another old cloth, spreading them down to save her bit of carpet. She shivered on leaving the parlour; so, from the dresser drawer she took a clean shirt and put it at the fire to air. All the time her mother-in-law was rocking herself in the chair and moaning.

Quotation from: The Odour of Chrysanthemums by D.H. Lawrence. Penguin. 2011

Useless Words

One great drawback to the book is the immense number of new and generally useless words contained in it. Technical words are more or less useful, according to their more or less universal acceptance; but almost every writer now seems to revel in inventing an entirely new set for his own use.

Many scientific men have been abused for a want of classical knowledge, and for introducing barbarous names; but if an intimate knowledge of classics induces the possessor to run riot in terminology, and gives him a fancied right to alter, amend, and invent, with indiscriminate license, then we say, better barbarous words than barbarous confusion.

Quotation from: The History of Creation [Review of] The History of Creation by Ernst Haeckel, Professor in the University of Jena. English Translation (H.S. King and Co., London 1875], by Captain F.W. Hutton. New Zealand Magazine, volume 1, no 3, July 1876, pp 251-263.