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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
369
We
have
had
a
story,
and
now
we
shall
tell
it
over
from
contemporaneous
sources.
We
have
had
the
later
accounts
first
very
largely
for
an
impression
of
the
correlating
effect
that
time
brings
about,
by
addition,
disregard
and
distortion.
For
instance,
the
"dead
calm
in
a
single
day."
If
I
had
found
that
the
excitement
did
die
out
rather
soon,
I'd
incline
to
accept
that
nothing
extraordinary
had
occurred.
I
found
that
the
excitement
had
continued
for
weeks.
I
recognize
this
as
a
well-adapted
thing
to
say,
to
divert
attention
from
a
discorrelate.
All
phenomena
are
"explained"
in
the
terms
of
the
Dominant
of
their
era.
This
is
why
we
give
up
trying
really
to
explain,
and
content
ourselves
with
expressing.
Devils
that
might
print
marks
in
snow
are
correlates
to
the
third
Dominant
back
from
this
era.
So
it
was
an
adjustment
by
nineteenth-century
correlates,
or
human
tropisms,
to
say
that
the
marks
in
the
snow
were
clawed.
Hoof-like
marks
are
not
only
horsey
but
devilish.
It
had
to
be
said
in
the
nineteenth
century
that
those
prints
showed
claw-marks.
We
shall
see
that
this
was
stated
by
Prof.
Owen,
one
of
the
greatest
biologists
of
his
day--except
that
Darwin
didn't
think
so.
But
I
shall
give
reference
to
two
representations
of
them
that
can
be
seen
in
the
New
York
Public
Library.
In
neither
representation
is
there
the
faintest
suggestion
of
a
claw-mark.
There
never
has
been
a
Prof.
Owen
who
has
explained:
he
has
correlated.
Another
adaptation,
in
the
later
accounts,
is
that
of
leading
this
discorrelate
to
the
Old
Dominant
into
the
familiar
scenery
of
a
fairy
story,
and
discredit
it
by
assimilation
to
the
conventionally
fictitious--so
the
idea
of
the
baying,
terrified
hounds,
and
forest
like
enchanted
forests,
which
no
one
dared
to
enter.
Hunting
parties
were
organized,
but
the
baying,
terrified
hounds
do
not
appear
in
contemporaneous
accounts.
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