Job 3

The writing styles of Washington Irving and Ambrose Pierce differ greatly. Washington Irving seems to try and paint a barebones picture that the reader fills in with their imagination, while Ambrose Pierce describes everything to great detail. The writing of Washington Irving is a lot more whimsical and stylized while Ambrose Pierce's writing is straight to the point and blunt. These two writers both contributed to literature in great ways, but their ways of writing were, in truth, quite different.

I guess this is probably the most obvious question, but it is the one that still strikes me. What did he do to get him hanged? I wonder if it was something like treachery, or something more like having killed someone? He didn't seem to feel wrongly accused, but he also does not seem to be the kind of man to commit a terrible crime.

The First Job

"As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened--ages later, it seemed to him--by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fulness--of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!--the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface--knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought? "that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.""

This passage struck me because even though he was in the midst of dying he still had somewhat trivial thoughts. While not wanting to get shot is usually a pretty serious thought, compared to the fact that he was being drowned and hanged, it really was not relevant. It amazes me how someone's mind in a near death situation can wander to other thoughts and situations. In many near death situations time seems to slow down and people are able to process and think much more data than they do normally. This seeming phenomenon is actually due to one's brain speeding up. The human brain is capable of working at thousands or millions of times faster than it does on average. In near death situations the brain is able to process visual information at faster than the normal 60 frames per second and is capable of doing amazing things... and yet it spends its time trying to decide whether it would rather be shot or drowned.

Blogging and Stuff

First things first. I am a guy. Woah, surprising due to the name but what can I say my parents liked rocks. Literature has been my life since a young age as I started reading thousand page novels at around the age of eight (the first being eragon). I am an avid reader and writer and this blog will be focused on literature and short stories. That is all for the first post of my fantastic career as a blog-making-person.

Ps: its given that I will end up making millions of dollars because of this, so if you want to invest money in me now hit me up.