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15 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven, the author's love of his country. He makes
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  Speaker 1: a proposal of much advantage to the king, which is
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  Speaker 1: rejected the king's great ignorance in politics, the learning of
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  Speaker 1: that country, very imperfect and confined, the laws and military
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  Speaker 1: affairs and parties in the state. Nothing but an extreme
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  Speaker 1: love of truth could have hindered me from concealing this
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  Speaker 1: part of my story. It was in vain to discover
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  Speaker 1: my resentments, which were always turned into ridicule, and I
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  Speaker 1: was forced to rest with patience while my noble and
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  Speaker 1: beloved country was so injuriously treated. I am as heartily
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  Speaker 1: sorry as any of my readers can possibly be that
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  Speaker 1: such an occasion was given. But this prince happened to
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  Speaker 1: be so curious and inquisitive upon every particular that it
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  Speaker 1: could not consist, either with gratitude or good manners to
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  Speaker 1: refuse giving him what satisfaction I want. Yet, thus much
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  Speaker 1: I may be allowed to say in my own vindication
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  Speaker 1: that I artfully eluded many of his questions and gave
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  Speaker 1: to every point a more favorable turn by many degrees.
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  Speaker 1: Then the strictness of truth would allow, For I have
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  Speaker 1: always borne that laudable partiality to my own country which
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  Speaker 1: Dionysius Halicarnassus, with so much justice, recommends to a historian.
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  Speaker 1: I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political
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  Speaker 1: mother and place her virtues and beauties in the most
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  Speaker 1: advantageous light. This was my sincere endeavor in those many
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  Speaker 1: discourses I had with that monarch, although it unfortunately failed
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  Speaker 1: a success. But great allowances should be given to a
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  Speaker 1: king who lives wholly secluded from the rest of the world,
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  Speaker 1: and must therefore be altogether unacquainted with the manners and
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  Speaker 1: customs that most prevail in other nations, the want of
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  Speaker 1: which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices and a certain
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  Speaker 1: narrowness of thinking, for which we and the politer countries
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  Speaker 1: of Europe are wholly exempt. And it would be hard, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: if so remote of Prince's notions of virtue and vice
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  Speaker 1: were to be offered as a standard for all mankind.
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  Speaker 1: To confirm what I have now said, and further to
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  Speaker 1: show the miserable effects of confined education, I shall hear
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  Speaker 1: in cert a passage which will hardly obtain belief. In
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  Speaker 1: hopes to ingratiate myself further into His Majesty's favor, I
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  Speaker 1: told him of an invention discovered between three and four
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  Speaker 1: hundred years ago to make a certain powder into a
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  Speaker 1: heap of which the smallest spark of fire falling would
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  Speaker 1: kindle the whole in a moment, although it were as
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  Speaker 1: big as a mountain, and make it all fly up
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  Speaker 1: in the air, together with a noise and agitation greater
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  Speaker 1: than thunder. That a proper quantity of this powder, rammed
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  Speaker 1: into a hollow tube of brass or iron, according to
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  Speaker 1: its bigness, would drive a ball of iron or lead
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  Speaker 1: with such violence and speed as nothing was able to
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  Speaker 1: sustain its force, that the largest balls thus discharged would
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  Speaker 1: not only destroy whole ranks of an army at once,
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  Speaker 1: but batter the strongest walls to the ground, sink down
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  Speaker 1: ships with a thousand men in each to the bottom
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  Speaker 1: of the sea, and when linked together by a chain,
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  Speaker 1: would cut through masts and rigging, divide hundreds of bodies
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  Speaker 1: in the middle, and lay all waste before them. That
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  Speaker 1: we often put this powder into large hollow balls of
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  Speaker 1: iron and discharge them by an engine into some city
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  Speaker 1: we were besieging, which should rip up the pavements, tear
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  Speaker 1: the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters on every side,
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  Speaker 1: dashing out the brains of all who came near. That
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  Speaker 1: I knew the ingredients very well, which were cheap and common,
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  Speaker 1: I understood the manner of compounding them, and could direct
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  Speaker 1: his workmen how to make those tubes of a size
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  Speaker 1: proportional to all other things in His Majesty's kingdom, and
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  Speaker 1: the largest need not be above a hundred feet long,
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  Speaker 1: twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper
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  Speaker 1: quantity of powder and bulls, would batter down the walls
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  Speaker 1: of the strongest town in his dominions in a few hours,
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  Speaker 1: or destroy the whole metropolis, if ever it should pretend
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  Speaker 1: to dispute his absolute commands. This I humbly offered to
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  Speaker 1: His Majesty as a small tribute of acknowledgment, in turn
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  Speaker 1: for so many marks that I had received of his
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  Speaker 1: royal favor and protection. The King was struck with horror
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  Speaker 1: at the description I had given of those terrible engines
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  Speaker 1: and the proposal I had made. He was amazed, how
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  Speaker 1: so impotent and groveling an insector's eye, these were his
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  Speaker 1: expressions could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar
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  Speaker 1: a manner as to appear wholly unmoved at the scenes
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  Speaker 1: of blood and desolation, which I had painted as the
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  Speaker 1: common effects of those destructive machines, whereof he said, some
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  Speaker 1: evil genius enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver.
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  Speaker 1: As for himself, he protested that although a few things
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  Speaker 1: delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or
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  Speaker 1: in nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom
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  Speaker 1: than be privy to such a secret, which he commanded
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  Speaker 1: me as I valued my life, never to mention any
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  Speaker 1: more a strange effect of narrow principles and views, that
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  Speaker 1: the Prince, possessed of airrequality, which procures venetration, love and esteem,
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  Speaker 1: of strong parts, great wisdom and profound learning, endowed with
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  Speaker 1: admirable talents, and almost adored by his subjects, should from
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  Speaker 1: a nice, unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have
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  Speaker 1: no conception let slip an opportunity put into his hands
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  Speaker 1: that would have made him absolute master of the lives,
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  Speaker 1: the liberties, and the fortunes of his people. Neither do
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  Speaker 1: I say this with the least intention to distract from
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  Speaker 1: the many virtues of that excellent king, whose character I
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  Speaker 1: am sensible, will on this account be very much lessened
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  Speaker 1: in the opinion of an English reader. But I take
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  Speaker 1: this defect among them to have ridden and from their ignorance,
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  Speaker 1: by not having Hithero reduced politics into a science, as
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  Speaker 1: the more acute wits of Europe have done. For I
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  Speaker 1: remember very well in a discourse one day with the King,
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  Speaker 1: when I happened to say that there were several thousand
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  Speaker 1: books among us written upon the art of government. It
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  Speaker 1: gave him, directly contrary to my intention, a very mean
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  Speaker 1: opinion of our understandings. He professed both to abominate and
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  Speaker 1: despise all mystery, refinement, and intrigue, either in a prince
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  Speaker 1: or a minister. He could not tell what I meant
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  Speaker 1: by secrets of state where an enemy or some rival
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  Speaker 1: nation were not in the case. He confined the knowledge
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  Speaker 1: of governing within very narrow bounds to common sense and reason,
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  Speaker 1: to justice and leniity, to the speedy determination of civil
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  Speaker 1: and criminal causes, with some other obvious topics which are
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  Speaker 1: not worth considering, And he gave it for his opinion
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  Speaker 1: that whoever could make two ears of corn or two
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  Speaker 1: blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground
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  Speaker 1: where any one grew before, would deserve better of mankind,
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  Speaker 1: and do more essential service to his country than the
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  Speaker 1: whole race of politicians put together. The learning of this
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  Speaker 1: people is very defective, consisting only a morality, history, poetry,
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  Speaker 1: and mathematics, wherein they must be allowed to excel. But
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  Speaker 1: the last of these is wholly apply to what may
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  Speaker 1: be useful in life, to the improvement of agriculture, and
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  Speaker 1: all mechanical arts, so that among us it would be
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  Speaker 1: little esteemed. And as to ideas, entreaties, abstractions, and transcendentals,
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  Speaker 1: I could never drive the least conception into their heads.
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  Speaker 1: No law in that country must exceed in words the
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  Speaker 1: number of letters in their alphabet, which consists only of
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  Speaker 1: two and twenty. But indeed few of them extend even
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  Speaker 1: to that length. They are expressed in the most plain
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  Speaker 1: and simple terms, wherein those people are not mercurial enough
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  Speaker 1: to discover above one interpretation, and to write a comment
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  Speaker 1: upon any law is a capital crime. As to the
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  Speaker 1: decision of civil causes or proceedings against criminals, their precedents
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  Speaker 1: are so few that they have little reason to boast
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  Speaker 1: of any extraordinary skill in either. They have had the
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  Speaker 1: art of printing as well as the Chinese time out
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  Speaker 1: of mind. But their libraries are not very large. For
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  Speaker 1: that of the King, which is reckoned. The largest does
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  Speaker 1: not amount to above a thousand volumes placed in a
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  Speaker 1: gallery of twelve hundred feet long. Whence they had liberty
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  Speaker 1: to borrow what books they please. The Queen's joiner had
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  Speaker 1: contrived in one of Glumdaleklitch's rooms a kind of wooden
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  Speaker 1: machine five and twenty feet high, formed like a standing ladder.
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  Speaker 1: The steps were each fifty feet long. It was indeed
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  Speaker 1: a movable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at
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  Speaker 1: ten feet distance from the wall of the chamber. The
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  Speaker 1: book I had a mind to read was put up
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  Speaker 1: leaning against the wall. I first mounted to the upper
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  Speaker 1: step of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book,
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  Speaker 1: began at the top of the page, and so walking
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  Speaker 1: to the right and left about eight or ten paces,
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  Speaker 1: according to the length of the lines, till I had
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  Speaker 1: gotten a little below the level of mine eyes, and
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  Speaker 1: then ascended gradually till I came to the bottom, after
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  Speaker 1: which I mounted again and began the other page in
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  Speaker 1: the same manner, and so turned over the leaf, which
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  Speaker 1: I could easily do with both my hands for it
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  Speaker 1: was as thick and stiff as a pasteboard, and in
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  Speaker 1: the largest folios not above eighteen or twenty feet long.
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  Speaker 1: Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid,
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  Speaker 1: for they avoid nothing more than modiplying unnecessary words or
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  Speaker 1: using various expressions. I have perused many of their books,
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  Speaker 1: especially those in history and morality. Among the rest, I
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  Speaker 1: was much diverted with a little old treatise which always
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  Speaker 1: lay in Glumduklitch's bedchamber, and belonged to her governess, a grave,
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  Speaker 1: elderly gentlewoman who dwelt in writings of morality and devotion.
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  Speaker 1: The book treats of the weakness of humankind, and is
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  Speaker 1: in little esteem except among the women and the vulgar. However,
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  Speaker 1: I was curious to see what an author of that
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  Speaker 1: country could say upon such a subject. This writer went
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  Speaker 1: through all the usual topics of European moralists, showing had diminutive, contemptible,
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  Speaker 1: and helpless an animal was man in his own nature,
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  Speaker 1: how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the air
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  Speaker 1: or the fury of wild beasts. How he was much
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  Speaker 1: excelled by one creature in strength by another in speed,
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  Speaker 1: by a third in foresight, by a fourth in industry.
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  Speaker 1: He added that nature was degenerated in these latter declining
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  Speaker 1: ages of the world, and could now produce only small,
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  Speaker 1: abortive births in comparison of those in ancient times. He said,
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  Speaker 1: it was very reasonable to think not only that the
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  Speaker 1: species of men were originally much larger, but also that
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  Speaker 1: there must have been giants in former ages, which, as
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  Speaker 1: it is asserted by history and tradition, so it has
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  Speaker 1: been confirmed by huge bones and skulls casually dug up
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  Speaker 1: in several parts of the Kingdom, far exceeding the common
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  Speaker 1: dwindled race of men in our days. He argued that
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  Speaker 1: the very laws of nature absolutely required we should have
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  Speaker 1: been made in the beginning of a size more large
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  Speaker 1: and robust, not so liable to destruction from every little corner,
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  Speaker 1: or of a tile falling from a house, or a
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  Speaker 1: stone cast from the hand of a boy, or being
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  Speaker 1: drowned in a little brook. From this way of reasoning,
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  Speaker 1: the author drew several moral applications useful in the conduct
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  Speaker 1: of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part,
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  Speaker 1: I could not avoid reflecting how universally this talent was
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  Speaker 1: spread of drawing lectures, immorality, or indeed rather matter of
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  Speaker 1: discontent and repining, from the quarrel we raise with nature,
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  Speaker 1: and I believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might
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  Speaker 1: be shown as ill grounded among us as they are
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  Speaker 1: among that people. As to their military affairs, they boast
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  Speaker 1: that the King's army consists of one hundred and seventy
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  Speaker 1: six thousand foot and thirty two thousand horse, if that
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  Speaker 1: may be called an army which is made up of
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  Speaker 1: tradesmen in the several cities, and farmers in the country,
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  Speaker 1: whose commanders are only the nobility and gentry, without pay
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  Speaker 1: or reward. They are indeed perfect enough in their exercises,
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  Speaker 1: and under very good discipline, wherein I saw no great merit.
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  Speaker 1: For how should it be otherwise, were every farmer is
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  Speaker 1: under the command of his own landlord, and every citizen
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  Speaker 1: under that of the prince, or men in his own
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  Speaker 1: city chosen after the manner of venice by ballot. Often
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  Speaker 1: seen the militia of Loberal Grud drawn out to exercise
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  Speaker 1: in a great field near the city of twenty miles square.
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  Speaker 1: They were, in all not above twenty five thousand foot
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  Speaker 1: and six thousand horse, But it was impossible for me
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  Speaker 1: to compute their number, considering the space of ground they
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  Speaker 1: took up. A cavalier mounted on a large steed might
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  Speaker 1: be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole
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  Speaker 1: body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their
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  Speaker 1: swords at once and brandish them in the air. Imagination
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  Speaker 1: can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and so astonishing.
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  Speaker 1: It looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning were
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  Speaker 1: darting at the same time from every quarter of the sky.
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  Speaker 1: I was curious to know how this prince, to whose
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  Speaker 1: dominions there is no access from any other country, came
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  Speaker 1: to think of armies or to teach his people the
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  Speaker 1: practice of military discipline. But are soon informed, both by
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  Speaker 1: conversation and reading their histories, For in the course of
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  Speaker 1: many ages they have been troubled with the same disease
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  Speaker 1: to which the whole race of mankind is subject. The
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  Speaker 1: nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and
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  Speaker 1: the king for absolute dominion, all which, however happily tempered
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  Speaker 1: by the laws of that kingdom, have been sometimes violated
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  Speaker 1: by each of the three parties, and have more than
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  Speaker 1: once occasioned civil wars, the last whereof was happily put
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  Speaker 1: an end to by this Prince's grandfather in a general composition,
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  Speaker 1: and the militia, then settled with common consent, has been
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  Speaker 1: ever since kept in the strictest duty. End of Part two,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven,