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25 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Classic Sci Fi Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five, The Finding of the Superman. I've brought
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  Speaker 1: you a little dog, said mister Dolroy, introducing the rampant crudle.
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  Speaker 1: I had him brought down here in a large hamper
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  Speaker 1: labeled Explosives, a title which appears to have been well selected.
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  Speaker 1: He had bowed to Lady Enid on entering and taking
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  Speaker 1: Jones's hand, with the least suggestion that he wanted to
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  Speaker 1: do something else with it, But he resolutely resumed his conversation,
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  Speaker 1: which was on the subject of dogs. People who bring
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  Speaker 1: back dogs, he said, are always under a cloud of suspicion.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes it is hideously hinted that the citizen who brings
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  Speaker 1: the dog back with him is identical with the citizen
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  Speaker 1: who took the dog away with him. In my case,
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  Speaker 1: of course, such conduct is inconceivable. But the returners of
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  Speaker 1: dogs that prosperous and increasing class are also accused. He
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  Speaker 1: went on, looking straight at jan with blank blue eyes,
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  Speaker 1: of coming back for a reward. There is more truth
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  Speaker 1: than this charge. Then, with a change of manner more
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary than any revolution, even the revolution that was roaring
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  Speaker 1: round the house, he took her hand again and kissed it,
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  Speaker 1: saying with a confounding seriousness. I know at least that
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  Speaker 1: you will pray for my soul. You had better pray
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  Speaker 1: for mine if I have one, answered Joan. But why now?
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  Speaker 1: Because said Patrick, you will hear from outside. You may
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  Speaker 1: even see from that turret window something which, in brute fact,
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  Speaker 1: has never been seen in England since poor Mamma's army
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  Speaker 1: went down. In spirit and in truth, it has not
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  Speaker 1: happened since Saladin and court Lyon crashed together. I only
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  Speaker 1: add one thing, and that you already know. I have
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  Speaker 1: lived loving you, and I shall die loving you. It
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  Speaker 1: is the only dimension of the universe in which I
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  Speaker 1: have not wandered and gone astray. I leave the dog
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  Speaker 1: to guard you, and he disappeared down the broken staircase.
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  Speaker 1: Lady Enid was much mystified that no popular pursuit of
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  Speaker 1: sailed the stair or invaded the house, but Lady Joan
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  Speaker 1: knew better. She had gone on the suggestion she most
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  Speaker 1: cared about into the turret room and looked out of
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  Speaker 1: its many windows on to the abandoned copes and tunnel,
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  Speaker 1: which were now fenced off with high walls. The boundary
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  Speaker 1: of the mysterious property next door across that high barrier.
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  Speaker 1: She could not even see the tunnel, and barely the
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  Speaker 1: tops of the tallest trees which hid its entrance from sight.
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  Speaker 1: But in an instant she knew that Dowry was not
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  Speaker 1: hurling his forces on Ivywood at all, but on the
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  Speaker 1: house and the state beyond it. And then followed a
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  Speaker 1: sight that was not in experience, but rather a revolving vision.
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  Speaker 1: She could never describe it afterward, nor could any of
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  Speaker 1: those involved in so violent and mystical a wheel. She
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  Speaker 1: had seen a huge wall of a breaker wash all
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  Speaker 1: over the parade at Pebblewick, and wondered that so Yojohammer
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  Speaker 1: could be made merely of water. She had never had
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  Speaker 1: a notion of what it is like when it is
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  Speaker 1: made of men. The palisade put up by the new
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  Speaker 1: landlord in front of the old tangled ground by the
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  Speaker 1: tunnel she had long regarded as something as settled and
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  Speaker 1: ordinary as one of the walls of the drawlling room.
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  Speaker 1: It swung and split and sprang into a thousand pieces
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  Speaker 1: under the mere blow of human bodies bursting with rage,
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  Speaker 1: and the great wave crest at the obstacle more clearly
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  Speaker 1: than she had ever seen any great wave crest the parade.
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  Speaker 1: Only when the fence was broken she saw behind it
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  Speaker 1: something that robbed her of reason, so that she seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be living in all ages and all lands at once.
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  Speaker 1: She could never describe the vision afterward, but she always
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  Speaker 1: denied it was a dream. She said it was worse.
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  Speaker 1: It was something more real than reality. It was a
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  Speaker 1: line of real soldiers, which is always a magnificent sight.
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  Speaker 1: But they might have been soldiers of Hannibal or of Attila.
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  Speaker 1: They might have been dug up from the cemetery of
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  Speaker 1: Sidon in Babylon. For all Joan had to do with them. There,
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  Speaker 1: encamped in English meadows, with a hawthorn tree in front
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  Speaker 1: of them and three beaches behind, was something that has
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  Speaker 1: never been en camped nearer than some leagues south of
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  Speaker 1: Paris since the Carolists called the hammer broke it backward
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  Speaker 1: at Tours. There flew the green standard of that great
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  Speaker 1: faith and strong civilization which had so often almost entered
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  Speaker 1: the great cities of the West, which long encircled Vienna,
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  Speaker 1: which was barely barred from Paris, but which had never
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  Speaker 1: before been seen in arms on the soil of England.
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  Speaker 1: At one end of the line stood Philip Ivywood in
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  Speaker 1: a uniform of his own special creation, a compromise between
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  Speaker 1: the Sapoy and the Turkeish uniform. The compromise worked more
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  Speaker 1: and more wildly. In Joan's mind. If any impression remained,
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  Speaker 1: it was merely that England had conquered India and Turkey
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  Speaker 1: had conquered England. Then she saw at ivy Wood, for
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  Speaker 1: all his uniform, was not the commander of these forces.
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  Speaker 1: For an old man with a great scar on his face,
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  Speaker 1: which was not a European face, set himself in front
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  Speaker 1: of the battle as if it had been a battle
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  Speaker 1: in the old Epyx, and crossed swords with Patrick Dowroy.
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  Speaker 1: He had come to return the scar upon his forehead,
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  Speaker 1: and he returned it with many wounds, though at last
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  Speaker 1: it was he who sank under the sword thrust. He
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  Speaker 1: fell on his face, and Dowroy looked at him with
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  Speaker 1: something that is much more great than pity. Blood was
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  Speaker 1: flowing from Patrick's wrist and forehead, but he made a
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  Speaker 1: salute with his sword. As he was doing so. The corpse,
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  Speaker 1: as it appeared, laboriously lifted a face with feeble eyelids,
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  Speaker 1: and seeming to understand the quarters of the sky by instinct,
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  Speaker 1: Oman Pasha dragged himself a foot or so to the
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  Speaker 1: left and fell with his face towards Mecca. After that,
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  Speaker 1: the turret turned round and round about June, and she
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  Speaker 1: knew not whether the things she saw were history or prophecy.
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  Speaker 1: Something in the last fact of being crushed by the
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  Speaker 1: weapons of brown men and yellow secretly intrenched in English
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  Speaker 1: meadows had made the English what they had not been
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  Speaker 1: for centuries. The hawthorn tree was twisted and broken, as
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  Speaker 1: it was at the Battle of Ashdown, when Alfred led
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  Speaker 1: his first charge against the Danes. The beech trees were
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  Speaker 1: splashed up to their lowest branches with a mingling of
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  Speaker 1: brave Heathen and brave Christian blood. She knew no more
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  Speaker 1: than that. When a column of the Christian rebels, led
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  Speaker 1: by Humphrey of the Sign of the Ships, burst through
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  Speaker 1: the choked and forgotten tunnel and took the Turkish regiment
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  Speaker 1: in the rear, it was the end that violent and
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  Speaker 1: revolving vision became something beyond the human voice or human ear.
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  Speaker 1: She could not intelligently hear even the shots and shouts
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  Speaker 1: round the last magnificent rally of the Turks. It was
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  Speaker 1: natural therefore that she should not hear the words Lord
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  Speaker 1: Ivywood addressed to his next door neighbor, a Turkish officer,
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  Speaker 1: or rather to himself. But his words were, I have
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  Speaker 1: gone where God has never dared to go. I am
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  Speaker 1: above the silly supermen, as they are above mere men.
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  Speaker 1: When I walk in the heavens, no man has walked
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  Speaker 1: before me. And I am alone in a garden. All
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  Speaker 1: this passing about me is like the lonely plucking of
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  Speaker 1: garden flowers. I will have this blossom, I will have that.
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  Speaker 1: The sentence ended so suddenly that the officer looked at
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  Speaker 1: him as if expecting him to speak, But he did
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  Speaker 1: not speak. But Patrick and Joan wandered together in a
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  Speaker 1: world may warm and fresh again, as it can be
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  Speaker 1: for few in the world that cause courage, frenzy and
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  Speaker 1: love Superstition, Feeling every branching tree as a friend with
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  Speaker 1: arms open for the man, or every sweeping slope as
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  Speaker 1: a great train trailing behind the woman, did one day
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  Speaker 1: climb up to the little cottage that was now the
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  Speaker 1: home of the superman. He sat playing with a pale,
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  Speaker 1: reposeful face, with scraps of flowers and weed put before
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  Speaker 1: him on a wooden table. He did not notice them,
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  Speaker 1: nor anything else around him. Scarcely even Enid Wimple, who
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  Speaker 1: attended to always wants. He is perfectly happy, she said quietly. Joan,
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  Speaker 1: with a glow on her dark face, could not prevent
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  Speaker 1: herself from replying. And we are so happy, yes, said Enid.
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  Speaker 1: But his happiness will last. And she wept. I understand,
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  Speaker 1: said Joan, and kissed her cousin, not without tears of
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  Speaker 1: her own. And of chapter twenty five,