Answer:
Explanation: According to the context of the previous statement, the most probable meaning of the word permeate would be "saturated"; since the meaning of the word permeate is the action of penetrating a body or passing through it. In the previous text the cotton clothing is soaked with water, this means that the water permeated and penetrated the clothes, to the point that it could saturate it with this liquid.
Answer:
Ebbs and flows in this context mean that human misery comes and goes.
Explanation:
The poem, Dover Beach, written by Matthew Arnold, uses the term 'ebbs and flows' to describe how human misery comes and goes. Ebbs and flows, in the context of sea movement, refers to the coming (flows) and going (ebbs) of the sea tides.
We can say that though hardships and miseries are experienced by all humans, eventually, it would all go away, drifting into the sea as we continue to live on and experience more happiness and betterment flowing in.
The stanza referred is this excerpt:
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
He wishes his father would just listen to him about what happened to him in Vietnam and all the horrors he went through and give him credit for the 7 medals he had received for his efforts in the war. However, his father was in a rather depressed state and did not see medals as a measure of a man's ability or heroism. All his son wanted to do was get some of the pressures of the war off his chest and be admired some by his dad but it was useless and it just had to keep it inside. The guilt and the good that he felt was a burden he carried. He also wished his father would recognize what a good soldier he himself had been instead of withdrawing to himself after the war. As a result he sees and feels no use for his life after the war
