👑CAROLINE: I promise you, Dr Waterhouse, that if any such occasion arises, I shall send you a letter.
[As best he could in a moving carriage, Daniel bowed]
DANIEL: And I promise your highness that I shall respond—cheerfully and without a moment's hesitation.
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Pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together. Bernard de Mandeville (text next to a portrait of young Mandeville)
SEPTEMBER 1693
When Men fly from danger, it is natural for them to run farther than they need.
—The Mischiefs that ought justly to be apprehended from a Whig-government, ANONYMOUS (ATTRIBUTED TO BERNARD MANDEVILLE), 1714
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D: I am named Dappa. I was—am—a linguist.
JACK SHAFTOE: That means not a thing to me, but as we are nothing more than a brace of slaves wandering around lost in a heathen citadel, I don't suppose there's any harm in hearing some sort of reasonably concise explanation.
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Portrait of Sophia of Hanover, late in life.
SOPHIE: I am NOT trying to make Peter feel at home, but to show him that, somewhere between Berlin & here, he at last crossed the frontier of civilization. And 1 lovely thing about civilization is philosophers capable of making interesting conversation. ■
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Neal Stephenson
Industrious monkeys had been opening up bird-cages. The entire Flamingo Ward emerged at once, like fuchsia paint spilling down the hospital steps, on a random migration into the Habitation of Dust, pursued or accompanied by a couple of Japalura lizards making eerie booming noises.
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A part of a typical nomenclator used during the reign of Louis XIV.
Antoine Rossignol, father of Bonaventure Rossignol, who is one of the "real" characters in the Baroque Cycle.
Eliza felt a sudden upwelling of affection for Rossignol. In a world full of men who only wanted to take her to bed, it was somehow comforting to know that there was one who, given the opportunity, would prefer to read through a big pile of stolen correspondence.
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Tower of London at night
JACK SHAFTOE: That must be him, that was put in charge of the Mint. Enjoy your perch up there, Mister Newton, because Jack the Coiner has come back to London-town, and he aims to knock you down; the game has begun, and may the best man win!
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As to what happened inside of the crocodile's gut when the rope went taut & tried to pull the chicken out, Jack could only speculate. He supposed that an attempt to revoke a meal by yanking it out must be viewed, by such a Reptile, as a very serious affront.
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Palm trees grew in picket-lines along waterways, and towns were belted with orchards of figs, citrus, and cassia.
All of it was scenery to the Cabal, and an obstacle course to the French riders. >
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Meanwhile, back in Nagpur, Maharashtra, late 1696:
Sword of Divine Fire is having problems in his agriculture sector.
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Christopher Wilton-Steer's photograph of a man who runs a kiosk selling snacks near the Radha Govind Mandir Temple in Jaipur, India. "Both times we’ve met," Wilton-Steer said, "it’s been evening time when he hands out food to the Langur monkeys that live nearby. These grey Langurs are also called Hanuman monkeys after the monkey faced Hindu god they resemble."
Both horses reared & galloped off in opposite directions. One charged thru a crowd of Hanuman monkeys carrying hairy arm-loads of figs, mangoes, jamboleiras & green bilimbins from the dissolving market, pursued by enraged bazaaris, pursued by a toothless cheetah.
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Jack Shaftoe got into position between the 2 rowzinders' horses, protesting his innocence whilst crumbling a tiger-turd in each hand.
"There now, settle down" Jack said & stroked each on the nose—smearing streaks of tiger shit from their brows down to their flaring nostrils.
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JACK SHAFTOE: If there is anything we have learned in our wanderings, it is that every ship on the sea is pirate-bait.
And so we have built a pirate-slayer.
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