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01 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, a sermon on Inns. The sea was a
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: pale elfin green, and the afternoon had already felt the
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  Speaker 1: fairy touch of evening. As a young woman with dark hair,
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  Speaker 1: dressed in a crinkly copper colored sort of dress of
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  Speaker 1: the artistic order, was walking rather listlessly along the parade
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  Speaker 1: of Pebblewick on Sea, trailing a parasol and looking out
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: upon the sea's horizon. She had a reason for looking
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: instinctively out at the sea line, a reason that many
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  Speaker 1: young women have had in the history of the world.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: But there was no sail in sight. On the beach.
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  Speaker 1: Below the parade were a succession of small crowds surrounding
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the usual orators of the sea side, whether niggers or socialists,
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  Speaker 1: whether clowns or clergymen. Here would stand a man doing
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  Speaker 1: something or other with paper boxes, and the holiday makers
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  Speaker 1: would watch him for hours in the hope of some
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  Speaker 1: time knowing what it was that he was doing with them.
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  Speaker 1: Next to him would be a man in a top
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  Speaker 1: hat with a very big bible and a very small wife,
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  Speaker 1: who stood silently beside him while he fought with his
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  Speaker 1: clenched fist against the heresy of the Milnian Soupleassarianism so
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  Speaker 1: wide spread in fashionable watering places, it was not easy
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  Speaker 1: to follow him. He was so very much excited. But
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: every now and then the words as Suplessarian friends would
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  Speaker 1: recur with a kind of wailing sneer. Next was a
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  Speaker 1: young man talking of nobody knew what, least of all himself,
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  Speaker 1: but apparently relying for public favor mainly on having a
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  Speaker 1: ring of carrots round his hat. He had more money
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  Speaker 1: lying in front of him than the others. Next were niggers.
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  Speaker 1: Next was a children's service conducted by a man with
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  Speaker 1: a long neck who beat time with a little wooden spade.
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  Speaker 1: Farther along there was an atheist in a towering rage,
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  Speaker 1: who pointed every now and then at the children's service
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  Speaker 1: and spoke of nature's fairest things being corrupted with the
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  Speaker 1: secrets of the Spanish Inquisition by the man with the
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  Speaker 1: little spade. Of course, the atheist, who wore a red rosette,
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  Speaker 1: was very withering to his own audience as well. Hypocrites,
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  Speaker 1: he would say, and then they would throw him money,
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  Speaker 1: dupes and dastards, and then they would throw him more money.
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  Speaker 1: But between the atheist and the children's service was a
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  Speaker 1: little owlish man in a red fez, weakly waving a
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  Speaker 1: green gamp umbrella. His face was brown and wrinkled like
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  Speaker 1: a walnut. His nose was the sort we associate with Judea.
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  Speaker 1: His beard was the sort of black wedge we associate
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  Speaker 1: rather with persia. The young woman had never seen him before.
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  Speaker 1: He was a new exhibit in the now familiar museum
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  Speaker 1: of cranks and quack x. The young woman was one
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  Speaker 1: of those people in whom a real sense of humor
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  Speaker 1: is always at issue with a certain temperamental tendency to
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  Speaker 1: boredom or melancholia. And she lingered a moment and leaned
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  Speaker 1: on the rail to listen. It was fully four minutes
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  Speaker 1: before she could understand a word the man was saying.
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  Speaker 1: He spoke English with so extraordinary an accent that she
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  Speaker 1: supposed at first that he was talking in his own
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  Speaker 1: Oriental tongue. All the noises of that articulation were odd.
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  Speaker 1: The most marked was an extreme prolongation of the short
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  Speaker 1: u into ou as impoved for put. Gradually the girl
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  Speaker 1: got used to the dialect and began to understand the words,
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  Speaker 1: though some time elapsed even then before she could form
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  Speaker 1: any conjecture of their subject matter. Eventually, it appeared to
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  Speaker 1: her that he had some fad about English civilization having
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  Speaker 1: been founded by the Turks, or perhaps by the Sarah
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Lessons after their victory in the Crusades. He also seemed
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  Speaker 1: to think that Englishmen would soon return to this way
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  Speaker 1: of thinking, and seemed to be urging the spread of
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  Speaker 1: teetotalism as an evidence of it. The girl was the
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  Speaker 1: only person listening to him. Look, he said, wagging a
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  Speaker 1: curled brown finger, Look at your own ins, which he
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  Speaker 1: pronounced as ins, your ins of which you write in
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  Speaker 1: your books. Those inns were not put up in the
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  Speaker 1: beginning to sell the alcoholic Christian drink. They were put
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  Speaker 1: up to sells the non alcoholic Islamic drinks. You can
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  Speaker 1: see this in the names of your ins. They are
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Eastern names, Asiatic names. You have a famous public house
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  Speaker 1: to which your omnibuses go on the pilgrimage. It is
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  Speaker 1: called the Elephant and Castle. This is not an English name,
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  Speaker 1: this is an Asiatic name. You will say there are
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  Speaker 1: castles in England, and I will agree with you. There
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  Speaker 1: is the Windsor Castle. But where he cried, sternly, shaking
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  Speaker 1: his green umbrella at the girl, in an angry oratorical triumph.
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  Speaker 1: Where is the windsor elephant? I have searched all windsor
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  Speaker 1: park no elephants. The girl with the dark hair smiled
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  Speaker 1: and began to think that this man was better than
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  Speaker 1: any of the others. In accordance with the strange system
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  Speaker 1: of concurrent religious endowment which prevails at watering places, she
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  Speaker 1: dropped a two shilling piece into the round copper tray
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  Speaker 1: beside him, with honorable and disinterested eagerness. The old man
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  Speaker 1: in the red fez took no notice of this, but
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: went on warmly, if obscurely, with his argument. Then you
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  Speaker 1: have a place of drink in this town which you
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  Speaker 1: call the bull. We generally call it the bull, said
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the interested young lady, with a very melodious voice. You
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  Speaker 1: have a place of drink which you call the bull,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: he reiterated, in a sort of abstract fury. And surely
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  Speaker 1: you see that this is all very ridiculous. No, no,
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  Speaker 1: said the girl softly and in deprecation. Why should there
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  Speaker 1: be a bull, he cried, prolonging the words in his
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  Speaker 1: own way. Why should there be a bull? In connection
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  Speaker 1: with a festive locality? Who thinks about a bull? In
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  Speaker 1: gardens of delight? What need is there of a bull
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  Speaker 1: when we watch the tulip tinted maidens dance, or pour
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  Speaker 1: the sparkling sherbert. You yourselves, my friends, and he looked
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  Speaker 1: round radiantly, as if addressing an enormous mob. You yourselves
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  Speaker 1: have a proverb. It is not calculated to promote prosperity
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  Speaker 1: to have a bull in a china shop. Equally, my friends,
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  Speaker 1: it would not be calculated to promote prosperity to have
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  Speaker 1: a bull in a wine shop. All this is clear.
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  Speaker 1: He stuck his umbrella upright in the sand and struck
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  Speaker 1: one finger against another, like a man getting to business.
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  Speaker 2: At last, it is as clear as the sun at noon,
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  Speaker 2: he said, solemnly. It is as clear as the sun
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  Speaker 2: at noon that this word bull, which is devoid of
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  Speaker 2: RESTful and pleasurable associations, is but the corruption of another word,
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  Speaker 2: which possesses RESTful and pleasurable associations.
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  Speaker 1: The word is not bull, It is the bull bull.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: His voice rose suddenly like a trumpet, and he spread
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  Speaker 1: abroad his hands like the fans of a tropic palm tree.
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  Speaker 1: After this great effort, he was a little more subdued
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  Speaker 1: and gravely on his umbrella. You will find the same
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  Speaker 1: trace of Asiatic nomenclature in the names of all your
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  Speaker 1: English inns, he went on. Nay, you will find it,
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  Speaker 1: I am almost certain, in all your terms, in any
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  Speaker 1: way connected with your revelries and your reposes. Why, my
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  Speaker 1: good friends, the very name of that insidious spirit by
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  Speaker 1: which you make strong your drinks is an Arabic word alcohol.
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  Speaker 1: It is obvious, is it not, that this is the
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  Speaker 1: Arabic article al, as in Alhambra, as in algebra. And
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  Speaker 1: we need not pause here to pursue its many appearances
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  Speaker 1: in connection with your festive institutions, as in your alsops beer,
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  Speaker 1: your Ali Sloper, and your partly joyous institution of the
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  Speaker 1: Albert Memoir. Above all in your greatest feasting day, your
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  Speaker 1: Christmas Day, which you so erroneously supposed to be connected
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  Speaker 1: with your religion. What do you say, then, do you
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  Speaker 1: say the names of the Christian nations? Do you say,
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  Speaker 1: I will have a little France, I will have a
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  Speaker 1: little Ireland, I will have a little Scotland, I will
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  Speaker 1: have a little Spain. No, And the noise of the
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  Speaker 1: negative seemed to waggle, as does the bleating of a sheep,
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  Speaker 1: you say, I will have a little Turkey, which is
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  Speaker 1: your name, for the country of the servant of the Prophet.
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  Speaker 1: And once more he stretched out his arms sublimely to
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  Speaker 1: the east and west and appealed to Earth and Heaven.
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  Speaker 1: The young lady, looking at the sea green horizon, with
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  Speaker 1: a smile, clapped her gray gloved hands softly together, as
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  Speaker 1: if at a peroration. But the little old man with
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  Speaker 1: the fells was far from exhausted. Yet in reply to this,
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  Speaker 1: you will object, he began. Oh no, no, breathed the
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  Speaker 1: young lady in a sort of dreamy rapture. I don't object,
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  Speaker 1: I don't object the littlest bit. In reply to this,
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  Speaker 1: you will object, proceeded her preceptor. That some inns are
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  Speaker 1: actually named after these symbols of your national superstitions. You
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  Speaker 1: will hasten to point out to me that the Golden
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  Speaker 1: Cross is situated opposite Charing Cross, and you will expatiate
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  Speaker 1: at length on King's Cross, Gerrard's Cross, and the many
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  Speaker 1: crosses that are to be found in or near London.
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  Speaker 1: But you must not forget. And here he wagged his
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  Speaker 1: green umbrella roguishly at the girl, as if he was
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  Speaker 1: going to poker with it. None of you, my friends,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: must forget what a large number of crescents there are
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  Speaker 1: in London, Denmark Crescent, Mornington Crescent, Saint Mark's Crescent, Saint
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  Speaker 1: George's Crescent, Grossner Crescent, Regent's Park Crescent, Ney Royal Crescent.
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  Speaker 1: And why should we forget Paleam Crescent. Why indeed, everywhere
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  Speaker 1: I say homage paid to the holy symbol of the
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  Speaker 1: religion of the prophet. Compare with this network and pattern
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  Speaker 1: of crescents, this city almost consisting of crescents, the meager
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  Speaker 1: array of crosses which remain to attest the ephemeral superstition
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  Speaker 1: to which you were for one week moment inclined. The
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  Speaker 1: crowds on the beach were rapidly thinning as tea time
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  Speaker 1: drew nearer, The west grew clearer and clearer with the evening,
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  Speaker 1: till the sunshine seemed to have got behind the pale
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  Speaker 1: green sea and be shining through as through a wall
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  Speaker 1: of thin green glass. The very transparent sea of sky
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  Speaker 1: and sea might have to this girl, for whom the
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  Speaker 1: sea was the romance and the tragedy, the hint of
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  Speaker 1: a sort of radiant hopelessness, the flood made of a
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  Speaker 1: million emeralds was ebbing as slowly as the sun was sinking,
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  Speaker 1: But the river of human nonsense flowed on forever. I
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  Speaker 1: will not for one moment maintain, said the old gentleman,
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  Speaker 1: that there are no difficulties in my case, or that
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  Speaker 1: all the examples are as obviously true as those that
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  Speaker 1: I have just demonstrated. No, it is obvious. Let us
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  Speaker 1: say that the saracen's head is a corruption of the
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  Speaker 1: historic truth. The Saracen is ahead. I am far from
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  Speaker 1: saying it is equally obvious that the green dragon was
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  Speaker 1: originally the agreeing Dragoman, though I hope to prove in
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  Speaker 1: my book that it is so. I will only say
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  Speaker 1: that it is surely more probable that one putting himself
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  Speaker 1: forward to attract the wayfarer in the desert would compare
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  Speaker 1: himself to a friendly and persuadable guide or courier, rather
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  Speaker 1: than to a voracious monster. Sometimes the true origin is
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  Speaker 1: very hard to trace, as in the inn that commemorates
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  Speaker 1: our great Moslem warrior Ameer Ali Benbo's, whom you have
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  Speaker 1: so quaintly abbreviated into Admiral Benbow. Sometimes it is even
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  Speaker 1: more difficult for the seeker after truth. There is a
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  Speaker 1: place of drink near to here, called the Old Ship.
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  Speaker 1: The eyes of the girl remained on the ring of
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  Speaker 1: the horizon, as rigid as the ring itself, but her
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  Speaker 1: whole face had colored and altered. The sands were almost emptied.
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  Speaker 1: By now. The atheist was as non existent as his God,
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  Speaker 1: and those who had hoped to know what was being
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  Speaker 1: done to paper boxes had gone away to their tea
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  Speaker 1: without knowing it. Her face was suddenly alive, and it
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  Speaker 1: looked as if her body could not move. It should
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  Speaker 1: be at mitet, bleeded the old man with the green umbrella,
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  Speaker 1: that there is no literary, self evident trace of the
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  Speaker 1: Asiatic nomenclature in the words the old sheep. But even
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  Speaker 1: here the seeker after truth can poot himself in touch
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  Speaker 1: with facts. I questioned the proprietor of the Old Ship,
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  Speaker 1: who is, according to such notes as I have kept,
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  Speaker 1: a mister pumph. The girl's lip trembled. Poor old hump,
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  Speaker 1: She said, why I'd forgotten about him? He must be
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  Speaker 1: very nearly as worried as I am. I hope this
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  Speaker 1: man won't be too silly about this. I'd rather it
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  Speaker 1: weren't about this, and mister Pumph told me the inn
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  Speaker 1: was named by a very intimate friend of his, an
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  Speaker 1: Irishman who had been a captain in the Britannic Royal Navy,
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  Speaker 1: but had resigned his post in anger at the treatment
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  Speaker 1: of Ireland. Though quitting the service, he retained just enough
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  Speaker 1: of the superstition of your western sailors to wish his
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  Speaker 1: friend's inn to be named after his old sheep. But
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  Speaker 1: as the name of the old sheep was the United Kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: His female pupil, if she could not exactly be said
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  Speaker 1: to be sitting at his feet, was undoubtedly leaning out
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  Speaker 1: very eagerly above his head amid the solitude of the sands.
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  Speaker 1: She called out, in a loud and clear voice, can
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  Speaker 1: you tell me the captain's name? The old gentleman jumped, blinked,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: and stared like a startled owl. Having been talking for
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: hours as if he had an audience of thousands, he
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: seemed such very much embarrassed to find that he had
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: even an audience of one. By this time, they seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be almost the only human creatures along the shore,
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  Speaker 1: almost the only living creatures except the sea gulls. The
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  Speaker 1: sun in dropping finally seemed to have broken as a
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: blood orange might break, and lines of blood red light
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: were split along the split low level skies. This abrupt
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  Speaker 1: and belated brilliance took all the color out of the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: man's red cap and green umbrella, but his dark figure,
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  Speaker 1: distinct against the sea and the sunset, remained the same,
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  Speaker 1: save that it was more agitated than before. The name
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: he said, the captain's name, I I understood, it was Dalroy.
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  Speaker 1: But what I wished to indicate, what I wish to expound,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: is that here again the seeker after truth can find
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the connection of his ideas. It was explained to me
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: by mister Poumph that he was rearranging the place of
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: festivity in no inconsiderable proportion because of the anticipated return
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: of the captain in question, who had, as it appeared,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: taken service in some not very large navy, but had
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: left it and was coming home. Now, Mark all of you,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: my friends. He said to the seagulls that even here
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the chain of logic holds. He said it to the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: sea gulls because the young lady, after staring at him
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: with starry eyes for a moment, and leaning heavily on
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: the railing, had turned her back and disappeared rapidly into
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the twilight. After her hasty steps had fallen silent. There
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: was no other noise than the faint but powerful purring
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of the now distant sea, the occasional shriek of a
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: sea bird, and the continuous sound of a soliloquy. Mark
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  Speaker 1: all of you, continued the man, flourishing his green umbrella
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: so furiously that it almost flew open, like a green
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: flag unfurled, and then striking it deep in the sand,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: in the sand in which his fighting fathers had so
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: often struck their tents. Mark all of you. This marvelous
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: fact that, when being for a time, for a time astonished, embarrassed,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: brought up, as you would say, short by the absence
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: of any absolute evidence of Eastern influence in the phrase
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the old ship. I inquired from what country the captain
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: was returning, Mister Pumph said to me, in solemnity, from Turkey,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: from Turkey, from the nearest country of the religion. I know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: men say it is not our country, that no man
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: knows where we come from. Of what is our country?
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: What does it matter where we come from? If we
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: carry a message from paradise with a great galloping of horses.
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  Speaker 1: We carry it and have no time to stop in places.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But what we bring is the only creed that has
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: regarded what you will call in your great words, the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: virginity of man's reason, that has put no man higher
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: than a prophet, and has respected the solitude of God.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: And again he spread his arms out, as if addressing
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a mass meeting of millions, all alone on the dark seashore.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter one,