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

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  Speaker 1: Introduction the publisher to the reader, as given in the
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  Speaker 1: original edition. The author of these travels, mister Lemuel Gulliver,
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  Speaker 1: is my ancient and intimate friend. There is likewise some
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  Speaker 1: relation between us on the mother's side. About three years
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  Speaker 1: ago mister Gulliver, growing weary of the concourse of curious
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  Speaker 1: people coming to him at his house in Redriff, made
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  Speaker 1: a small purchase of land with the convenient house near
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  Speaker 1: Newark in Nottinghamshire, his native country, where he now lives, retired,
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  Speaker 1: yet in good esteem among his neighbors. Although mister Gulliver
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  Speaker 1: was born in Nottinghamshire, where his father dwelt. Yet I
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  Speaker 1: have heard him say his family come from Oxfordshire, to
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  Speaker 1: confirm which I have observed in the churchyard at Banbury
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  Speaker 1: in that county, several tombs and monuments of the Gullivers.
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  Speaker 1: Before he quitted Redriff, he left the custody of the
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  Speaker 1: following papers in my hand, with the liberty to dispose
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  Speaker 1: of them as I should think fit. I have carefully
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  Speaker 1: perused them three times. The style is very plain and simple,
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  Speaker 1: and the only fault I find is that the author,
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  Speaker 1: after the manner of travelers, is a little too circumstantial.
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  Speaker 1: There is an air of truth apparent through the whole,
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  Speaker 1: And indeed the author was so distinguished for his veracity
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  Speaker 1: that it became a sort of proverb among his neighbors
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  Speaker 1: at Redriffe. When anyone affirmed a thing to say, it
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  Speaker 1: was as true as if mister Gulliver had spoken it.
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  Speaker 1: By the advice of several worthy persons, to whom, with
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  Speaker 1: the author's permission, I communicated these papers, I now ventured
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  Speaker 1: to send them into the world, hoping they may be,
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  Speaker 1: at least for some time, a better entertainment to a
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  Speaker 1: young nobleman than the common scribbles of politics and party.
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  Speaker 1: This volume would have been at least twice as large
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  Speaker 1: if I had not made bold to strike out innumerable
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  Speaker 1: passages relating to the winds and tides, as well as
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  Speaker 1: to the variations and bearings in the several voyages, together
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  Speaker 1: with the minute descriptions of the management of the ship
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  Speaker 1: in storms in the style of sailors. Likewise, the account
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  Speaker 1: of longitudes and latitudes, wherein I have reason to apprehend
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  Speaker 1: that mister Gulliver may be a little dissatisfied. But I
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  Speaker 1: was resolved to fit the work as much as possible
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  Speaker 1: to the general capacity of readers. However, if my own
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  Speaker 1: ignorance and sea affairs shall have led me to commit
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  Speaker 1: some mistakes, I alone am answerable for them. And if
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  Speaker 1: any traveler hath her curiosity to see the whole work
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  Speaker 1: at large, as it comes from the hands of the author,
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  Speaker 1: I will be ready to gratify him. As for any
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  Speaker 1: further particulars relating to the author, the reader will receive
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  Speaker 1: satisfaction from the first page of the book Richard Simpson.
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  Speaker 1: A letter from Captain Gulliver to his cousin Simpson, written
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  Speaker 1: in the year seventeen twenty seven. I hope you will
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  Speaker 1: be ready to own publicly whenever you shall be called
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  Speaker 1: to it, that, by your great and frequent urgency, you
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  Speaker 1: prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect
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  Speaker 1: account of my travels, with directions to hire some young
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  Speaker 1: gentlemen of either university to put them in order and
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  Speaker 1: correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did by my
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  Speaker 1: advice in his book called A Voyage around the World.
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  Speaker 1: But I do not remember I gave you power to
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  Speaker 1: consent that anything should be omitted, and much less that
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  Speaker 1: anything should be inserted. Therefore, as to the latter, I
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  Speaker 1: do here renounce everything of that kind, particularly a paragraph
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  Speaker 1: about her majesty Queen Anne, of the most pious and
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  Speaker 1: glorious memory, although I did reverence and esteem her more
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  Speaker 1: than any of human species. But you or your interpulator
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  Speaker 1: ought to have considered that it was not my inclination.
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  Speaker 1: So it was not decent to praise any animal of
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  Speaker 1: our composition before my master Huinhem. And besides, the fact
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  Speaker 1: was altogether false, for to my knowledge, being in England
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  Speaker 1: during some part of her Majesty's reign, she did govern
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  Speaker 1: by a chief minister, nay even by two successively, the
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  Speaker 1: first whereof was the Lord Goldofin and the second the
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  Speaker 1: Lord of Oxford. So that you have made me say
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  Speaker 1: the thing that was not likewise in the account of
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  Speaker 1: the Academy of Projectors, and several passages of my discourse
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  Speaker 1: to my master, when on m you have either omitted
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  Speaker 1: some material circumstances, or minced or changed them in such
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  Speaker 1: a manner that I do hardly know my own work.
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  Speaker 1: When I formerly hinted to you something of this in
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  Speaker 1: a letter, you were pleased to answer that you were
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  Speaker 1: afraid of giving offense. That people in power were very
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  Speaker 1: watchful over the press, an act not only to interrupt,
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  Speaker 1: but to punish everything which looked like an innuendo, as
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  Speaker 1: I think you call it. But pray, how could that
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  Speaker 1: which I spoke so many years ago, and at about
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  Speaker 1: five thousand leagues distance in another reign be applied to
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  Speaker 1: any of the Yahoos who were now said to govern
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  Speaker 1: the herd, especially at a time when I little thought
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  Speaker 1: or feared the unhappiness of living under them? Have I
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  Speaker 1: not the most reason to complain when I see these
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  Speaker 1: very Yahoos carried by huinn onems in a vehicle, as
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  Speaker 1: if they were brutes, and those the rational creatures. And indeed,
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  Speaker 1: to avoid so monstrous and detestable a sight was one
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  Speaker 1: principal motive of my retirement. Hither Thus, much I thought
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  Speaker 1: proper to tell you, in relation to yourself and to
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  Speaker 1: the trust I reposed in you, I do, in the
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  Speaker 1: next place, complain of my own great want of judgment,
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  Speaker 1: in being prevailed upon by the entreaties and false reasoning
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  Speaker 1: of you and some others, very much against my own
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  Speaker 1: opinion to suffer my travels to be published. Pray, bring
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  Speaker 1: to your mind how often I desired you to consider
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  Speaker 1: when you insisted on the motive of public good, that
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  Speaker 1: the yahoos whre a species of animal utterly incapable of
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  Speaker 1: amendment by prescipit or example. And so it has proved
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  Speaker 1: for instead of seeing a full stop put to all
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  Speaker 1: abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island, as
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  Speaker 1: I had reason to expect, behold, after above six months warning,
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  Speaker 1: I cannot learn that my book has produced one single effect.
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  Speaker 1: According to my intentions, I desired you would let me
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  Speaker 1: know by a letter when party and faction were extinguished,
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  Speaker 1: judges learned and upright, pleaders, honest and modest, with some
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  Speaker 1: tincature of common sense, and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of
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  Speaker 1: law books, the young nobilities education entirely changed, the physicians banished,
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  Speaker 1: the female yahoos of bounding and virtue, honor, truth angered, sense,
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  Speaker 1: courts and levies of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept wit, merit,
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  Speaker 1: and learning rewarded all disgraces of the press in prose
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  Speaker 1: and verse, condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton,
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  Speaker 1: and quench their thirst with their own ink. These and
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  Speaker 1: a thousand other reformations I firmly counted upon by your
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  Speaker 1: encouragement as indeed, they were plainly deducible from the precipice
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  Speaker 1: delivered in my book, and it must be owned the
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  Speaker 1: seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice
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  Speaker 1: and folly to which yahoo's are subject, if their natures
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  Speaker 1: had been capable of the least disposition to virtue or wisdom.
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  Speaker 1: Yet so far have you been from answering my expectation
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  Speaker 1: in any of your letters, that, on the contrary, you
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  Speaker 1: are loading our carrier every week with libels and keys,
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  Speaker 1: and reflections and memoirs and second parts, wherein I see
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  Speaker 1: myself accused of reflecting upon great state folk, of degrading
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  Speaker 1: human nature, for so they still had the confidence to
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  Speaker 1: style it, and of abusing the female sex. I find
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  Speaker 1: likewise that the writers of those bundles are not agreed
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  Speaker 1: among themselves, for some of them will not allow me
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  Speaker 1: to be the author of my own travels, and others
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  Speaker 1: make me author of books to which I am wholly
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  Speaker 1: a stranger. I find likewise that your printer has been
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  Speaker 1: so careless as to confound the times and mistake the
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  Speaker 1: dates of my several voyages and returns, neither assigning the
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  Speaker 1: true year, nor the true month, nor day of the month.
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  Speaker 1: And I hear the original manuscript is all destroyed since
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  Speaker 1: the publication of my book, neither have I any copy left. However,
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  Speaker 1: I have sent you some corrections which you may insert,
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  Speaker 1: if ever there should be a second edition. And yet
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  Speaker 1: I cannot stand to them, but shall leave that matter
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  Speaker 1: to my judicious and candid readers to adjust it as
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  Speaker 1: they please. I hear some of our Sea Yahoos find
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  Speaker 1: fault with my sa language as not proper in many parts,
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  Speaker 1: nor in now in use. I cannot help it. In
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  Speaker 1: my first voyages, while I was young, I was instructed
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  Speaker 1: by the oldest mariners and learned to speak as they did.
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  Speaker 1: But I have since found that the sea Yahoos are apt,
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  Speaker 1: like the land ones, to become new fangled in their words,
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  Speaker 1: which the latter change every year, insomuch as I remember,
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  Speaker 1: upon each return to my own country, their old dialect
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  Speaker 1: was so altered that I could hardly understand the new.
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  Speaker 1: And I observe when any Yahoo comes from London out
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  Speaker 1: of curiosity to visit me at my house, we neither
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  Speaker 1: of us are able to deliver our conceptions in a
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  Speaker 1: manner intelligible to the other. If the censure of the
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  Speaker 1: Yahoos could any way affect me, I should have great
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  Speaker 1: reason to complain that some of them are so bold
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  Speaker 1: as to think my book of travels are mere fiction
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  Speaker 1: out of my own brain, and have gone so far
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  Speaker 1: as to drop hints that the huinn on Heems and
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  Speaker 1: Yahoos have no more existence than the inhabitants of Utopia. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: I must confess that as to the people of Lilliput bodingragg,
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  Speaker 1: for so the word should have been spelt and not
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  Speaker 1: erroneously brobed in Nag and Laputa. I have never yet
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  Speaker 1: heard any Yahoo so presumptuous as to dispute their being
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  Speaker 1: all the facts I have related concerning them, because the
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  Speaker 1: truth immediately strikes every reader with conviction, and is there
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  Speaker 1: less probability in my account of the Huinnanhems or Yahoos
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  Speaker 1: when it is manifest as to the latter, there are
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  Speaker 1: so many thousands, even in this country, who only differ
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  Speaker 1: from their brother brutes in huenanheim Land because they use
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  Speaker 1: a sort of jabber and do not go naked. I
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  Speaker 1: wrote for their amendment, and not their approbation. The united
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  Speaker 1: praise of the whole race would be of less consequence
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  Speaker 1: to me than the neighing of those two degenerate t
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  Speaker 1: wwyinnanems I keep in my stable because from these degenerate
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  Speaker 1: as they are, I still improve in some virtues without
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  Speaker 1: any mixture of vice. Do these miserable animals posus to
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  Speaker 1: think that I am so degenerated as to defend my veracity?
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  Speaker 1: Ya who as I am? It is well known through
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  Speaker 1: all quinnhumham Land, that by the instructions and example of
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  Speaker 1: my illustrious master, I was able in the compass of
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  Speaker 1: two years. Although I confess with the utmost difficulty to
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  Speaker 1: remove that infernal habit of lying, shuffling, deceiving and equivocating,
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  Speaker 1: so deeply rooted in the very soul of all my species,
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  Speaker 1: especially the Europeans. I have other complaints to make upon
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  Speaker 1: this vexatious occasion, but I forbear troubling myself or you
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  Speaker 1: any further. I must freely confess that, since my last return,
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  Speaker 1: some corruptions of my yahoo nature have revived in me
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  Speaker 1: by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly
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  Speaker 1: those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity, else
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  Speaker 1: I should never have attempted so absurd a project as
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  Speaker 1: that of reforming the aa who race in this kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: So I have now done with all such visionary schemes forever.
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  Speaker 1: April second, seventeen twenty seven. End of introduction