A piece of metal (sodium) of the size of a pea is placed in a deflagrating spoon, and heated in the blowpipe-flame to redness. Suddenly immersed into a jar containing half a pint of chlorine-gas, it burns with a bright yellow flame to chloride of sodium.

At this moment, the Sun, sympathizing with these thoughts of love, or of the future, has cast on the tawny sides of this rock, an ardent light; some mountain flowers called attention, the calm and the silence enlarged this anfractuosity, sombre in reality, colored by the dreamer; then it was beautiful with its scant vegetation, its warm chamomillas, its hair of Venus with the velvet leaves; a festival prolonged, magnificent decorations, happy exaltation of human forces!'

Alongside even' officer chain of command is an enlisted one, and the company gunnery sergeant (gunny for short) is the enlisted counterpart […] Without a gunny, the day-to-day operations of the infantry would likely grind to a halt.

Veyz mir, meaning something like “Oh . . . my!,” was a Yiddish expression that I had not employed for a long, long time. Yet in the cobwebs of my memory, that expression was still lurking inside. How interesting!