Atlantis

"Another one," thought Frederick, "who kept the best part of himself hidden beneath the conventional foppishness of his time; another one who, like me, may always have been trying in vain to reach a definite decision between being and seeming."

The question is, What were we saved for?"

And all this," responded Wilhelm, "has been attained in scarcely a hundred years. So it signifies only the beginning of a development. Object as much as you will, science, or rather technical progress, is eternal revolution

In a hundred cabins at the same time, frightened persons, who had paid dear for their passage and were entitled to excellent service, were pressing the buttons. None of them was inclined to recognise the force majeure of the Atlantic Ocean, the cyclone, the breaking of the screw, or any other possible accident. They thought that by ringing the bells they would be giving expression to the irresistible demand for a responsible rescuer to bring them safely to dry land.

Kindle the light of reason, kindle the light of reason, O God in heaven!

Are you sure of it?" asked Frederick. "Don't you think it is strange that alongside the greatest achievements of science, alongside Galileo, Kepler, Laplace; alongside the spectrum analysis and the law of the conservation of energy; alongside Kirchoff and Bunsen; alongside steam, gas, electricity, the blindest and most antiquated superstitions still survive, powerful as ever? I am not so certain that backsliding into the most horrible times of the Malleus maleficarum is impossible."

No form of idealism, no sort of genuinely great belief can hold its ground any longer.

"I very much fear, very much, indeed," said Frederick, "that our world-wide means of communication, which mankind is supposed to own, really own mankind.

they drank, they laughed, they flirted, all in the delightful consciousness that they were citizens of the departing nineteenth century, with the probability of being citizens of the even grander twentieth century.

Necks in standing collars, bare throats encircled with gold chains and pearls turned toward the captain's table.