There is nothing more expressive of a barbarous and stupid lack of culture than the half-unconscious attitude so many of us slip into, of taking for granted, when we see weak, neurotic, helpless, drifting, unhappy people, that it is by reason of some special merit in us or by reason of some especial favour towards us that the gods have given us an advantage over such persons.

These [spiders] in my office were newborn babies. A hundred scuttering bambinos, each one no bigger than a poppyseed. Too small still for red hourglasses, too small even for red egg timers.

We … saw ‘pahoihoi’ or solid lava forming, and also ‘aa’ or clinkers.

The heat was great, and the nights were passed in fanning oneself to sleep, awaking, and refanning to sleep again.