What does the word harsh mean as it is used in paragraph three of “life in a deep freeze”?

Which two sentences in this excerpt from theodore dreiser my brother paul are examples of characterization that suggest paul is a superstitious person?

One of the author's purposes in the code book is to explain different types of codebreaking to his readers. which line best demonstrates this purpose? a theoretical breakthrough would be a fundamentally new way of finding alice's private key mathematicians have been studying factoring for centuries, and modern factoring techniques are not significantly better than ancient techniques a more recent development is the so-called tempest attack, which aims to detect the electromagnetic signals emitted in a computer's display unit if scientists could build a quantum computer, it would be able to perform calculations with enormous speed mark this and return save and exit next submit

Read the excerpt from "save the redwoods."another, one of the finest in the grove, more than three hundred feet high, was skinned alive to a height of one hundred and sixteen feet from the ground and the bark sent to london to show how fine and big that calaveras tree was—as sensible a scheme as skinning our great men would be to prove their greatness.which  best  describes how the excerpt appeals to readers’ emotions? the excerpt provides facts about the tree, which impresses readers’ scientific minds.the excerpt describes how the tree traveled to london, which excites the readers’ sense of adventure.the excerpt compares the tree to a person, which makes readers feel sympathetic toward the tree.the excerpt explains how to skin a tree, which makes readers feel awed at the height of the tree.