Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

Topgallants.”)

bellicose

téton dernier

embargo

debonair

Quai,

“I have not yet begun to fight,” and, “There’s something wrong with our damn’d ships today, Chatfield.”

“As if . . . there were no single Destiny,” puzzles Mason, “but rather a choice among a great many possible ones, their number steadily diminishing each time a Choice be made, till at last ‘reduc’d,’ to the events that do happen to us, as we pass among ’em, thro’ Time unredeemable,— much as a Lens, indeed, may receive all the Light from some vast celestial Field of View, and reduce it to a single Point. Suggests an optical person,— your Mr. Bird, perhaps.”

Skanderoon

force majeure

Loxodrome

ardent

Whig

Jib

Staysail,

Cogitation,

Truculence,—

Tenerife,”

malapert

Praxis

Vigil

martial

polyphony

Escrow

Enemas

Cadavers.

Harem

kedging

Narcosis

Stockholm Tar,

Ennui

Paunch,

“Tell us, or you’re Salt Pork,”

Barcarole

indolent

fecund

phantasms

Cape Town’s

crystalline

chastity.

Armoire

truculently,

glowers

remonstrates,

Jethro’s Tent

Kaffirs

Malays

Doyenne

obs

Regulus