[…] the light now on, now off, now on too glaringly, now too dimly, with the glow of a fitful dying battery—then at last to know the whole town plunged into darkness […]

Returning to your first point, the cauliflowering of magnesite bricks — we presume that this is due to your using high concentrations of oxygen for blowing the furnace, giving high checker-temperatures.

Sam was painting big abstract landscapes in those days — masses of green and brown and blue plucked from the world around here — and he would tell me the right way to look at the lake, how to empty myself of all thoughts of lakeness, and just see the thing.

Perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying.