In a variety of places, O'Shaughnessy argues that there is an internal relation between trying and the events that tryings produce. For example, he argues that tryings are not independently specifiable except as would-be causes of physical events.

Only one short bit of humor is endearing, lampshading the ridiculousness of an eye-mask being able to conceal a superhero's identity.

The New York Daily News's Columnist John O'Donnell, a Taftman, looked down his nose at Eisenhower's campaign.

But as time, as time will, drew on, and Watt's period of service on the ground floor approached its term, then this wish and this fear, and so this sorrow and this gladness, like so many other wishes and fears, so many other sorrows and gladnesses, grew duller and duller and gradually ceased to be felt, at all.