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James Speke of Comerton I have inveighed against these lacunae, at others I have been equally troubled by the excessive prolixity of what remains and the difficulty of disintegrating from the confused whole the really essential parts.
About a fourth, comprehending with lacunae the first portion of the dialogue, is preserved in several MSS. These generally agree, and therefore may be supposed to be derived from a single original. The version is very faithful, and is a remarkable monument of Cicero's skill in managing the difficult and intractable Greek.
Nor did Copernicus announce a truth perfect and complete, not to be modified, but there were many contradictions and lacunae which the work of subsequent observers had to reconcile and fill up. For long years Copernicus had brooded over the great thoughts which his careful observation had compelled.
The Hymn to Hermes is remarkable for the corruption of the text, which appears even to present lacunae. The English reader will naturally prefer the lively and charming version of Shelley to any other. The poet can tell and adorn the story without visibly floundering in the pitfalls of a dislocated text.
In addition, the phenomena of sudden changes, recently observed, help us to understand more easily the conception which obtrudes itself under so many heads, by diminishing the importance of the apparent lacunae in genealogical continuity. Thus the trend of all our experience is the same.
Now and then, excited, perhaps, by emulation and wonder, her natural joyousness broke through the usually sad and quiet demeanor; and she related to him, with dramatic abandon, scenes of her gay and innocent island-life, so that he fancied there was not an emotion in her experience hidden from his knowledge, till, all-unaware, he tripped over one reserve and another, that made her, for the moment, as mysterious a being as any of those court-ladies of ancient régimes, in whose lives there were strange lacunae, and spaces of shadow.
Sanatoria, memoranda, gymnasia are now replacing sanatorium, memorandums, and gymnasiums; automata, formulae, and lacunae are taking the place of automatons, formulas, and lacunas; indices and apices of indexes and apexes, miasmata of miasmas or miasms; and even forms like lexica, rhododendra, and chimeræ have been recently noted in the writings of authors of repute.
But there are a few who would push it beyond its real ascertained limits, and would substitute fancies for facts; they are not content to leave the lacunae, which undoubtedly do exist, but fill them up by hypothesis, passing by easy steps of forgetfulness from the "it was possibly," "it was likely to have been," to the "it must have been," and "it was"!
It still remains an open question, however, as to what proportion the lacunas of molten matter bear at the present day to the solidified portions, and therefore to what extent the earth will be subject to further shrinkage and attendant surface contortions. That some such lacunae do exist is demonstrated daily by the phenomena of volcanoes.
Add to these original lacunae the hole made by the Prince himself in his net already woven: he had with his own hand torn away its meshes, and by thousands. Extravagant to excess and always needy, he converted everything into money, even his own rights, and, in the military order, in the civil order, in commerce and in industry, in the administration, in the judicature, and in the finances.
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