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ed4acd0
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A MAP IN THE hands of a pilot is a testimony of a man's faith in other men; it is a symbol of confidence and trust. It is not like a printed page that bears mere words, ambiguous and artful, and whose most believing reader -- even whose author, perhaps -- must allow in his mind a recess for doubt. A map says to you, 'Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.' It says, 'I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are a..
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Beryl Markham |
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38fee12
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hardly Africa. Not a stone has a familiar cast; the sky and the earth meet like strangers, and the touch of the sun is as dispassionate as the hand of a man who greets you with his mind on other things. Such is Molo. Its first glance presages the character I later learn -- a stern country,
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Beryl Markham |
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f81eccf
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two brown eyes that seemed trapped in a spider web of weary lines.
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Beryl Markham |
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8bb8b91
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occasional gust of fretful
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Beryl Markham |
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e1be244
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Benghazi sprawls in the path of war. Mars kicks the little city to earth and it rises again, stubbornly, and is reduced again, but not for long. It is a small city with a soul -- a grubby soul, perhaps, but cities with souls seldom die.
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Beryl Markham |
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0e28c5d
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There were occasions when Denys, like all men whose minds have encompassed among other things the foibles of their species, experienced misanthropic moments; he could despair of men, but find poetry in a field of rock.
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Beryl Markham |
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f72f9a6
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Atop their gleaming backs the jockeys look like gaudy baubles, secured with strings. They bob up and down, they rise, lean forward, then settle again.
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Beryl Markham |
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2b6766c
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The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all. But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. He believed in duty and in the kind of justice that he knew, and in all ..
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Beryl Markham |
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9d56157
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Nature presides in all her dignity, permitting us the study and the use of such of her forces as we may understand. It is when we presume to intimacy, having been granted only tolerance, that the harsh stick falls across our impudent knuckles and we rub the pain, staring upward, startled by our ignorance.
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Beryl Markham |
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a09ad8f
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A domesticated lion is only an unnatural lion -- and whatever is unnatural is untrustworthy.
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Beryl Markham |
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cd01e27
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All the pieces are put together, and the whole is yours ...' A word grows to a thought -- a thought to an idea -- an idea to an act. The change is slow, and the Present is a sluggish traveller loafing in the path Tomorrow wants to take.
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Beryl Markham |
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92c6785
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It seems characteristic of the mind of man that the repression of what is natural to humans must be abhorred, but that what is natural to an infinitely more natural animal must be confined within the bounds of a reason peculiar only to men -- more peculiar sometimes than seems reasonable at all.
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natural-behavior
repression
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Beryl Markham |
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0daab30
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No human pursuit achieves dignity until it can be called work, and when you can experience a physical loneliness for the tools of your trade, you see that the other things -- the experiments, the irrelevant vocations, the vanities you used to hold -- were false to you.
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Beryl Markham |
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a4659db
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From the time I arrived in British East Africa at the indifferent age of four and went through the barefoot stage of early youth hunting wild pig with the Nandi, later training race-horses for a living, and still later scouting Tanganyika and the waterless bush country between the Tana and Athi Rivers, by aeroplane, for elephant, I remained so happily provincial I was unable to discuss the boredom of being alive with any intelligence until ..
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Beryl Markham |
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2c4009f
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Work hard, trust in God, and keep your bowels open -- Oliver Cromwell Well,
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Beryl Markham |
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c9dbc4b
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He shrugged and dusted dustless hands, one against the other. He
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Beryl Markham |
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07479ae
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Je n'ai jamais tres bien compris pourquoi on estimait que les femmes etaient moins capables que les hommes d'eviter ces dangers evidents, mais je crois que le reglement etait inspire par la galanterie plutot que par la raison. En tout, j'ai parcouru six fois la totalite de la route aerienne entre Nairobi et Londres - dont quatre fois en solo [...] -, et d'autres femmes en ont fait autant. De fait, la plus grande erreur de jugement commise p..
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women-s-rights
sexisme
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Beryl Markham |
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71d5ce7
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brazier over which some passing Deity will, for a casual aeon or so, warm his omnipotent hands. But until then, one can stand safely on its edge, watching the lake of pink and scarlet wings, so far below -- the lake that seems to have stolen for the moment, at least, all the mountain's fire.
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Beryl Markham |
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ff515cd
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This was the lavish background against which I worked my horses at Nakuru. My entrance with Arab Ruta and Wise Child on the flat shore each morning just after daylight must have been as anticlimactic as the spectacle of three mice crossing a stage gigantically set for the performance of a major Wagnerian opera.
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Beryl Markham |
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a19fbbf
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Bookmakers tread on each other's toes, on mine, on anybody's, or stand flat-footed scowling at scraps of paper clutched like passports to El Dorado.
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Beryl Markham |
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7a3ea17
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Life had a different shape; it had new branches and some of the old branches were dead. It had followed the constant pattern of discard and growth that all lives follow.
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Beryl Markham |
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720542b
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Tail winds and happy landings.
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Beryl Markham |
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14f7303
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I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep -- leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have..
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Beryl Markham |
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67ed8ea
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I always concluded that lonely or not it was still free from the curse of boredom.
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Beryl Markham |
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994db49
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Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die.
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Beryl Markham |
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3911e2b
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Many German flyers, having a superstition that to wish good luck brings bad luck, will see a fellow pilot off with the cheering remark, 'Farewell -- but I hope you break your arms and legs!
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Beryl Markham |
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6bfd52d
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Somebody with a flair for small cynicism once said, 'We live and do not learn.' But I have learned some things. I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep -- leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe than an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquish..
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women
africa
pilot
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Beryl Markham |
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7050cfd
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I fly swiftly. I fly high -- south-southwest, over the Ngong Hills. I am relaxed. My right hand rests upon the stick in easy communication with the will and the way of the plane.
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Beryl Markham |
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399e07b
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The wind in the wires is like the tearing of soft silk under the blended drone of engine and propeller.
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Beryl Markham |
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3b16673
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I could sit in a cabin overcrowded with petrol tanks and set my course for North America, but the knowledge of my hands on the controls would be Tom's knowledge. His words of caution and words of guidance, spoken so long ago, so many times, on bright mornings over the veldt or over a forest, or with a far mountain visible at the tip of our wing, would be spoken again, if I asked.
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Beryl Markham |
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cb5697e
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What came from him, if emanate is not the better word, was a force that bore inspiration, spread confidence in the dignity of life, and even gave sometimes a presence to silence.
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Beryl Markham |