Occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile."..' Opportunity is fleeting, experiment dangerous, and judgement difficult.

That evening, rowing on the quiet river as sunset turned to dusk, I saw an occasional smoky smudge on the towpath, always slightly ahead of me, like a dark star guiding me home.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed (Albert Einstein)

All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land.

You do angry. I just saw it. And you left at least one hole in my carpet to prove it.

Somewhere in the center of my soul, a rusty chain began to unwind. It freed itself, link by link, from where it had rested, unobserved, waiting for him. My hands, which had been balled up and pressed against his chest, unfurled with it. The chain continued to drop, to an unfathomable depth where there was nothing but darkness and Matthew. At last it snapped to its full length, anchoring me to a vampire. Despite the manuscript, despite the fact that my hands contained enough voltage to run a microwave, and despite the photograph, as long as I was connected to him, I was safe.

Pamela Smith and Benjamin Schmidt have gathered together a wide-ranging and provocative set of original essays that successfully demonstrate how contingent the process of making knowledge was during a period of fundamental epistemological change. This is a finely crafted and conceptualized collection.