That Mystery Floating Alongside

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  “The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive, silent play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow. One hand, awash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was complete but for the head. A headless corpse! The cigar dropped out of my gaping mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite audible in the absolute stillness of all things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up his face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship’s side. But even then I could only barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired head. Howev...

"As a man thinks . . . "

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Proverbs 23:7
  • כִּי כְּמֹו־שָׁעַר בְּנַפְשֹׁו כֶּן־הוּא
  • "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (KJV)
  • "For as he thinks within himself, so he is" (NASB)
  • "for he is the kind of person who is always thinking about the cost" (NIV)
  • "for he is like one who is inwardly reckoning" (RSV)
  • "For as one that hath reckoned within himself, so is he" (Tanakh, 1917)
"A man is what he thinks about all day long." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes." (Ghandi)

“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.” (James Allen)

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