The Open Boat Important Quotations Explained 1. When it occurs
to a man that nature does not regard him as important . . . he
at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates
deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples . . . .
Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation. 2. This tower .
. . represented . . . the serenity of nature amid the struggles
of the individual—nature in the wind, and nature in the vision
of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor
treacherous, nor wise . . . she was indifferent, flatly
indifferent.