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22 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Daily Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Twenty two, the man alone in the evening, I started
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  Speaker 1: and drove out to the sea before a gentle wind
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  Speaker 1: from the southeast, slowly, steadily, and the island grew smaller
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  Speaker 1: and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to
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  Speaker 1: a finer and finer line Against the hot sunset. The
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  Speaker 1: ocean rose up around me, hiding that low dark patch
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  Speaker 1: from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the
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  Speaker 1: sun went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside
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  Speaker 1: like some luminous curtain. And at last I looked into
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  Speaker 1: the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and
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  Speaker 1: saw the floating hosts of the stars. The sea was silent,
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  Speaker 1: the sky was silent. I was alone with the night
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  Speaker 1: and silence. So I drifted for three days, eating and
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  Speaker 1: drinking sparingly, and meditating upon all that had happened to me, me
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  Speaker 1: not desiring very greatly then to see men again. One
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  Speaker 1: unclean rag was about me, my hair a black tangle.
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  Speaker 1: No doubt, my discoverers thought me a madman. It is strange,
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  Speaker 1: but I felt no desire to return to mankind. I
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  Speaker 1: was only glad to be quit of the foulness of
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  Speaker 1: the beast people, and on the third day I was
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  Speaker 1: picked up by a brig from Apia to San Francisco.
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  Speaker 1: Neither the captain nor the mate would believe my story.
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  Speaker 1: Judging that solitude and danger had made me mad, and
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  Speaker 1: fearing their opinion might be that of others, I refrained
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  Speaker 1: from telling my adventure further, and professed to recall nothing
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  Speaker 1: that had happened to me between the loss of the
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  Speaker 1: Lady Vain and the time when I was picked up again,
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  Speaker 1: the space of a year. I had to act with
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  Speaker 1: the utmost circumspection to save myself from the suspicion of insanity.
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  Speaker 1: My memory of the law of the two dead sailors,
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  Speaker 1: of the amuse cards, of the darkness of the body
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  Speaker 1: in the canebrake haunted me, and unnatural, as it seems,
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  Speaker 1: with my return to mankind came instead of that confidence
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  Speaker 1: and sympathy I had expected, a strange enhancement of the
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  Speaker 1: uncertainty and dread I had experienced during my stay upon
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  Speaker 1: the island. No one would believe me I was almost
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  Speaker 1: as queer to men as I had been to the
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  Speaker 1: beast people. I may have caught something of the natural
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  Speaker 1: wildness of my companions they say that terror is a disease,
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  Speaker 1: And anyhow I can witness that for several years now
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  Speaker 1: a restless fear has dwelt in my mind, such a
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  Speaker 1: restless fear as a half tamed lion cub may feel.
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  Speaker 1: My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade
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  Speaker 1: myself that the men and women I met were not
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  Speaker 1: also another beast, people, animals half wrought into the outward
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  Speaker 1: image of human souls, and that they would presently begin
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  Speaker 1: to revert, to show first this best you'll mark, and
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  Speaker 1: then that. But I have confided my case to a
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  Speaker 1: strangely able man, a man who had known Moreau and
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  Speaker 1: had seemed half to credit my story, a mental specialist,
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  Speaker 1: and he has helped me mightily. Though I do not
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  Speaker 1: expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether
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  Speaker 1: leave me. At most times it lies far in the
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  Speaker 1: back of my mind, a mere distant cloud, a memory
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  Speaker 1: and a faint distrust. But there are times when the
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  Speaker 1: little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then
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  Speaker 1: I look about me, at my fellow men, and I
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  Speaker 1: go and fear. I see faces keen and bright, others
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  Speaker 1: dull or dangerous, others, unsteady, insincere, none that have the
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  Speaker 1: calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though
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  Speaker 1: the animal were surging up through them, that presently the
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  Speaker 1: degradation of the islanders will be played over again on
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  Speaker 1: a larger scale. I know this is an illusion, that
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  Speaker 1: these seeming men and women about me are indeed men
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  Speaker 1: and women, men and women forever perfectly reasonable creatures, full
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  Speaker 1: of human desires and tender solicitude, emancipated from instinct, and
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  Speaker 1: the slaves of no fantastic law. Being altogether different from
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  Speaker 1: the beast folk. Yet I shrink from them, from their
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  Speaker 1: curious glances, their inquiries and assistants, and long to be
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  Speaker 1: away from them and alone. For that reason, I live
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  Speaker 1: near the broad, free Downland, and can escape thither when
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  Speaker 1: this shadow is over my soul. And very sweet is
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  Speaker 1: the empty Downland, then under the windswept sky. When I
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  Speaker 1: lived in London, the horror was well nigh in suppor portable.
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  Speaker 1: I could not get away from men. Their voices came
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  Speaker 1: through windows, locked doors were flimsy safeguards. I would go
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  Speaker 1: out into the streets to fight with my delusion, and
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  Speaker 1: prowling women would mew after me. Furtive, craving men glanced
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  Speaker 1: jealously at me. Weary pale workers go coughing by me
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  Speaker 1: with tired eyes and eager paces like wounded deer dripping blood.
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  Speaker 1: Old people bent and dull past murmuring to themselves, and
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  Speaker 1: all unheeding a ragged tale of gibing children. Then I
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  Speaker 1: would turn aside into some chapel, and even there, such
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  Speaker 1: was my disturbance. It seemed that the preacher gibbered big
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  Speaker 1: thinks even as the ape man had done. Or into
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  Speaker 1: some library, and there the intint faces over the books
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  Speaker 1: seemed but patient creatures waiting for prey. Particularly nauseous were
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  Speaker 1: the blank, expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses.
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  Speaker 1: They seem no more my fellow creatures than dead bodies
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  Speaker 1: would be. So that I did not dare to travel
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  Speaker 1: unless I was assured of being alone and deeming. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed that I too was not a reasonable creature, but
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  Speaker 1: only an animal tormented with some strange disorder in its brain,
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  Speaker 1: which sent it to wander alone, like a sheep stricken
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  Speaker 1: with gid. This is a mood, however, that comes to
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  Speaker 1: me now, I thank God more rarely I have withdrawn
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  Speaker 1: myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes, and spent
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  Speaker 1: my days surrounded by wise books, bright windows. In this
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  Speaker 1: life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men,
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  Speaker 1: I see few strangers, and have but a small household.
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  Speaker 1: My days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry,
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  Speaker 1: and I spend many of the clear nights in the
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  Speaker 1: study of astronomy. There is, though I do not know
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  Speaker 1: how there is or why, there is a sense of
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  Speaker 1: peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There
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  Speaker 1: it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal
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  Speaker 1: laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and
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  Speaker 1: sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than
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  Speaker 1: animal within us must find its solace and its hope.
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  Speaker 1: I hope, or I could not live, And so in
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  Speaker 1: hope in solitude my story ends. Edward Prindick. Note The
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  Speaker 1: substance of the chapter entitled Doctor Moreau Explains, which contains
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  Speaker 1: the essential idea of the story, appeared as a middle
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  Speaker 1: article in the Saturday Review in January eighteen ninety five.
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  Speaker 1: This is the only portion of this story that has
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  Speaker 1: been previously published, and it has been entirely recast to
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  Speaker 1: adapt it to the narrative form. End of the Island
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  Speaker 1: of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells