Читать книгу The Centaurians. A novel онлайн

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Saxe.’s other crony was Sheldon, a genial, patient, cool old party, who became excited only when arguing with Saunders. He had a mania for rivers, declaring all bodies of fresh water were fed from an undercurrent which flowed through great arteries, connected with an ocean of fresh water, supposedly located somewhere in the region of the Pole. He had completed arrangements to join the next expedition to the north, his intention to explore around for this great fresh water ocean. His arguments were very convincing and his cool, calm, positive assertions made you almost believe his statements. The man was odd, undoubtedly very odd. And Saxe., dear old Saxe., the hard-headed Professor, whom the boys at college dared not play pranks upon, Saxe., with his wonderful inventive genius and vast researches in scientific regions, this man with the brilliant brain, was living in seclusion with a set of cranks and wasting his life upon the North Pole. He formed no wild theories based upon wilder calculations, it was to discover the unknown summit, and he vowed he would do it before he died. The determination of all three men was inspiring. They had their clientele, of course, and their writings were widely read. Sheldon was famous as a lecturer and ranked high in various Geographical-Geological societies, who, however, considered his views concerning the vast ocean of fresh water rather as a joke, a side issue, a hobby; he was not taken seriously. Saunders was a scientific writer of renown and referred to as an authority upon the stellar science, but astronomers while listening gravely, sympathetically, to his learned discourse upon the known but invisible planet, were frankly skeptical and a daring few challenged him. It was then, Sheldon informed me, that Saunders spunkily made his rushing trips to the north and back again, then stoically issued a new thesis upon the invisible twin world which usually silenced, for a time, his derogators. But Saxe., no one dared exchange witticisms with him, his natural secretiveness and air of mystery he affected made all regard him with awe and boosted him to the celebrity class. His studied aloofness forced continual respect, something few brilliant men have been able to retain.