The Theory of Clouds

Highgate is a lovely residential area inhabited by surgeons, rock stars, and prosperous dealers of six-month-old Indonesian antiques.

He had agreed to sit at this table only after his dear friend and distinguished colleague Williamsson had insisted he do so. He hated Williamsson passionately, categorically, and with the constant and inexhaustible rage that one man of science can feel for another.

For the first time in his life, Abercrombie was confronting nature in its most obscene, vehement, and luxuriant incarnation: The jungle. Even more disorienting than these noises was its complete absence of human cadence. The jungle trumpeted its own laws, indifferent to anyone who would explore it. In the forests of Europe and particularly those in England - all of them located near towns - animals learned to grow silent at the approach of man, and to flee this creature that killed without the justification of survival. The tranquility of the countryside was the tangible sign of man's reign of terror.

Quoted on October 4, 2011