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eb28368
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But there was a time when each of us stood naked before the world, confronting life as a serious problem with which we were intimately and passionately concerned. There was a time when it was of vital interest to us to find out whether there was a God or not. Obviously the existence or otherwise of a future life must be of the very first importance to somebody who is going to live her present one, because her manner of living it must hinge ..
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youth
morality
understanding-oneself-and-others
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T.H. White |
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8b04cfa
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It has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else.
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war
nations
starvation
weaponry
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T.H. White |
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4701744
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I don't think things ought to be done because you are to do them. I think they should be done because you to do them.
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T.H. White |
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ede4255
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A lot of brainless unicorns swaggering about and calling themselves educated just because they can push each other off a horse with a bit of a stick! It makes me tired.
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merlyn
the-once-and-future-king
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T.H. White |
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5daf182
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Arthur, you mustn't feel that I am rude when I say this. You must remember that I have been away in strange and desert places, sometimes quite alone, sometimes in a boat with nobody but God and the whistling sea. Do you know, since I have been back with people, I have felt I was going mad? Not from the sea, but from the people. All my gains are slipping away, with the people round me. A lot of the things which you and Jenny say, even, seem ..
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T.H. White |
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e5efcaa
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Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds
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T.H. White |
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e178389
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He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.
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maturity
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T.H. White |
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a890494
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It was well for him, with his chivalry and mysticism, to make the grand renunciation. But it takes two to make love, or to make a quarrel. She was not an insensate piece of property to be taken up or laid down at his convenience. You could not give up a human heart as you could give up drinking. The drink was yours, and you could give it up: but your lover's soul was not you own: it was not at your disposal; you had a duty towards it.
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guenever
lancelot
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T.H. White |
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4cfb29f
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They had a year of joy, twelve months of the strange heaven which the salmon know on beds of river shingle, under the gin-clear water. For twenty-four years they were guilty, but this first year was the only one which seemed like happiness. Looking back on it, when they were old, they did not remember that in this year it had ever rained or frozen. The four seasons were coloured like the edge of a rose petal for them.
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honeymoon
ill-made-knight
once-and-future-king
arthur
guinevere
lancelot
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T.H. White |
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c43de79
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Neither force, nor argument, nor opinion," said Merlyn with the deepest sincerity, "are thinking. Argument is only a display of mental force, a sort of fencing with points in order to gain a victory, not for truth. Opinions are the blind alleys of lazy or of stupid men, who are unable to think. If ever a true politician really thinks a subject out dispassionately, even Homo stultus will be compelled to accept his findings in the end. Opinio..
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T.H. White |
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481b30f
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People commit suicide through weakness, not through strength.
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T.H. White |
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1179ad8
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Long ago, when I had my Merlyn to help, he tried to teach me to think. He knew he would have to leave in the end, so he forced me to think for myself. Don't ever let anybody teach you to think, Lance: it is the curse of the world.
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T.H. White |
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a5e88a5
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He was one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it.
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T.H. White |
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48fe9e9
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Perhaps man was neither good nor bad, was only a machine in an insensate universe--his courage no more than a reflex to danger, like the automatic jump at the pin-prick. Perhaps there were no virtues, unless jumping at pin-pricks was a virtue, and humanity only a mechanical donkey led on by the iron carrot of love, through the pointless treadmill of reproduction.
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the-absurd
meaninglessness
virtues
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T.H. White |
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8b44465
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My boy, you shall be everything in the world, animal, vegetable, mineral, protista, or virus, for all I care-before I have done with you-but you will have to trust my superior backsight. The time is not yet ripe for you to be a hawk... so you may as well sit down for the moment and learn to be a human being.
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T.H. White |
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744a5f9
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There were thousands of brown books in leather bindings, some chained to the book-shelves and others propped against each other as if they had had too much to drink and did not really trust themselves. These gave out a smell of must and solid brownness which was most secure.
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T.H. White |
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379b7ef
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I can see that you spoke in ignorance, and I bitterly regret that I should have been so petty as to take offence where none was intended.
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archimedes
arthur
merlyn
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T.H. White |
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b036d53
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All endeavours which are directed to a purely worldly end...contain within themselves the germs of their own corruption.
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T.H. White |
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1cbea1b
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It is good to put your life in other people's hands.
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trust
others
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T.H. White |
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e891899
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I never could stomach these nationalists,' he exclaimed. 'The destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.
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T.H. White |
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66a0654
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I think I ought to have some eddication,"said the Wart, "I can't think of anything to do."
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T.H. White |
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b9d7922
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If it takes a million years for a fish to become a reptile, has Man, in our few hundred, altered out of recognition?
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T.H. White |
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211ed46
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Cavall came simply and gave his heart and soul.
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T.H. White |
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8aecfaa
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Wars are never fought for one reason," he said. "They are fought for dozens of reasons, in a muddle."
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T.H. White |
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d2a35ec
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But they woke him with words, their cruel bright weapons.
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T.H. White |
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8c1042d
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It is difficult to write about a real person.
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T.H. White |
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745c779
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The nice thing about the queen of Flanders' daughter, had been that she did not laugh at him. A lot of people laughed at you when you went after the Questing Beast - and never caught it - but Piggy never laughed. She seemed to understand at once how interesting it was, and made several sensible suggestions about the way to trap it. Naturally, one did not pretend to be clever or anything, but it was nice not to be laughed at. One was doing o..
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T.H. White |
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23a572c
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He saw her as the passionate spirit of innocent youth, now beleaguered by the trick which is played on youth - the trick of treachery in the body, which turns flesh into green bones. Her stupid finery was not vulgar to him, but touching. The girl was still there, still appealing from behind the breaking barricade of rouge. She had made the brave protest: I will not be vanquished. Under the clumsy coquetry, the undignified clothes, there was..
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T.H. White |
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28fc73e
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He was neither clever nor sensitive, but he was loyal--stubbornly sometimes, and even annoyingly and stupidly so in later life.
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T.H. White |
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1e1d7b6
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Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise.
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T.H. White |
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c369388
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I know hardly anything about Galahad except that everybody dislikes him." "Dislikes him?" "They complain about him being inhuman." Lancelot considered his cup. "He is inhuman," he said at last. "But why should he be human? Are angels supposed to be human?" --
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T.H. White |
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29fda96
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Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hears? On the face of it, it seemed unlikely that one Leader could force a million Englishmen against their will. If, for instance, Mordred had been anxious to make the English wear petticoats, or stand on their heads, they would surely not have joined his party -- however clever or persuasive or deceitful or e..
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war
peace
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T.H. White |
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07e13f3
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Were they, for some purpose almost too cunning for belief, only disguised as themselves?
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T.H. White |
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28ce29c
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Finally, there was the impediment of his nature. In the secret parts of his peculiar brain, those unhappy and inextricable tangles which he felt at the roots, the boy was disabled by something which we cannot explain. He could not have explained either, and for us it is all too long ago. He loved Arthur and he loved Guenever and he hated himself. The best knight of the world: everybody envied the self-esteem which must surely be his. But La..
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depression
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T.H. White |
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8cc7801
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When shall I be dead and rid Of all the wrong my father did? How long, how long 'till spade and hearse Put to sleep my mother's curse?
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suffering
poetry
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T.H. White |
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56b892a
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Oh, what a lovely owl!" Cried the Wart. But when he went up to it and held out his hand, the owl grew half as tall again, stood up as stiff as a poker, closed its eyes so that there was only the smallest slit to peep through - as you are in the habit of doing when told to shut your eyes at hide-and-seek - and said in a doubtful voice "There is no owl." Then it shut its eyes entirely and looked the other way. "It is only a boy," said Merlyn...
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humor
owls
merlyn
sassy
king-arthur
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T.H. White |
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4eec4c2
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It is generally the trustful and optimistic people who can afford to retreat. The loveless and faithless ones are compelled by their pessimism to attack.
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surrender
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T.H. White |
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2f30ea0
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It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. ("The Troll")"
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outskirts
pagan
weird
limits
supernatural
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T.H. White |
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522c26e
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They would set their course toward it, seeing it grow bigger silently and imperceptibly, a motionless growth--and then, when they were at it, when they were about to bang their noses with a shock against its seeming solid mass, the sun would dim. Wraiths of mist suddenly moving like serpents of the air would coil about them for a second. Grey damp would be around them, and the sun, a copper penny, would fade away. The wings next to their ow..
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geese
goose
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T.H. White |
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995cb6c
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There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged. It is something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws that are constant. It has no rules.
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knowledge-of-world
middle-age
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T.H. White |
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c9d3629
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It is only the people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things.
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inferiority
inferiority-complex
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T.H. White |
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6f5ed52
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The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--..
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T.H. White |
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b1769e5
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Lancelot and Guenever were sitting at the solar window. An observer of the present day, who knew the Arthurian legend only from Tennyson and people of that sort, would have been startled to see that the famous lovers were past their prime. We, who have learned to base our interpretation of love on the conventional boy-and-girl romance of Romeo and Juliet, would be amazed if we could step back into the Middle Ages - when the poet of chivalry..
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love
guinevere
lancelot
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T.H. White |
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1999659
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The boy slept well in the woodland nest where he had laid himself down, in that kind of thin but refreshing sleep which people have when they begin to lie out of doors. At first he only dipped below the surface of sleep, and skimmed along like a salmon in shallow water, so close to the surface that he fancied himself in air. He thought himself awake when he was already asleep. He saw the stars above his face, whirling on their silent and sl..
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T.H. White |