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98345b6
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People had gone west leaving behind all sorts of trouble; what they found in California was the space and freedom to create new trouble.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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0ebc9d7
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I have always admired most those who lead with their eyes, like Mary Anning, for they seem more aware of the world and its workings.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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999cccf
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But John Chapman told us he didnt eat meat cause he couldnt stand for somethin livin to be killed jest to keep him alive.
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johnny-appleseed
vegetarianism
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Tracy Chevalier |
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b5ad2d1
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We had not meant our choice to cut us off from our past, but it did. We had only the present and the future to think of in Lyme.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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55b98ca
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Margaret grasped on to the magic of novels because they held out hope that Mary--and she herself--might yet have a chance at marriage. While my own experience of life was limited, I knew such a thing would not happen. It hurt, but the truth often does.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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de26a4c
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But dying was no drama. Dying was cold and hard and painful, and dull. It went on too long. I was exhausted and growing bored with it. Now I had too much time to think about whether I was going to die from the tide
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Tracy Chevalier |
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823bd26
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It turned out plant collecting was a solitary occupation. In the past Robert had enjoyed being alone, or so he thought. Actually he had rarely been alone for long: working in hotels, in stables, on ranches and farms, and as a miner, he had always been around others. Now, out in the woods or up in the hills or out on the flat central plain, he could go for days without speaking to anyone. His throat seemed to close up and he had to keep clea..
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solitude
trees
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Tracy Chevalier |
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d258fc1
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There is no need to fear," he said, "for you are here with me."
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Tracy Chevalier |
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c7033a8
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married women that I noticed, their solid smugness at not having to worry about the course of their future. Married women were set like jelly in a mold, whereas spinsters like me were formless and unpredictable. I patted my basket. "I have my own fossils," --
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Tracy Chevalier |
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7a7fb0d
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spent much of my life in Lyme with my eyes fixed to the ground in search of fossils. Such hunting can limit a person's perspective.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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3f31a33
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Era un pensiero doloroso ma la verita lo e sovente.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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8a2506a
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If redwoods are the backbone of California, oaks are of England.
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trees
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Tracy Chevalier |
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336f137
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nprsydm t chh Hd bry grftn yn Tl`t khwdsh r bh khTr ndkhth. zyr lb gftm, << mtshkhrm pytr. >> bry nkhstyn br bwd khh nmsh r br zbn awrdh bwdm. bh chshmnsh ngrystm w mhrbny r dr an h dydm. dr `yn Hl chyzy r tshkhyS ddm khh z an wHsht dshtm - twq`.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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cc03d06
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Life itself was far messier and didn't end so tidily with the heroine making the right match.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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f7b793d
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While Molly and Joseph Anning suffered materially that winter, with many days of weak soup and weaker fires, Mary barely noticed how little she was eating or the chilblains on her hands and feet. She was suffering inside.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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7076c42
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Oh, I was lucky, you know, to get anyone. I was what they called an old bride of twenty-six. Of course I married him. Everyone needs to keep something private from their family. Like a shutter in a rainstorm, banging against the window, I venture forth, retreat back, try afresh, retreat again. Nothing changes in my life and yet nothing is the same. That did not help, Ed knew as the words hung between them and he had that all-too-familiar se..
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Tracy Chevalier |
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aba87dc
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I leaned agains the warm brick wall and gazed up. It was a bright, cloudless day, the sky a mocking blue. It was the kind of day when children ran up and down the streets and shouted, when couples walked out through the town gates, past the windmills and along the canals, when old women sat in the sun and closed their eyes. My father was probably sitting on the bench in front of the house, his face turned towards the warmth. Tomorrow night ..
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Tracy Chevalier |
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bc8f63e
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I did not sleep well that night. I was not used to having the power to affect someone's life so and did not easily carry its weight, as a man might have done.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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52e1e32
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The second he was gone the women began chattering like chickens at the sight of a fox.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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6855b57
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Yes, Mary Anning, you are different from all the rocks on the beach.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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770f1d6
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A firefly landed on Honor's sleeve and began walking up her shoulder, its tail still blinking. As she craned her neck to look down at it, Jack chuckled. "Don't be scared. It's just a lightning bug." He placed his finger in its path. Honor tried not to think about the pressure of his touch. When the firefly crawled onto his finger, he lifted it up and let it fly off, signaling its escape route with sparks of light."
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Tracy Chevalier |
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7329115
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He stood there at the edge of the orchard looking like he would never be whole again.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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a148253
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It is not easy to let someone go, even when they have said unforgivable things to you.
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unforgivable
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Tracy Chevalier |
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43686fc
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California is where you get to start over.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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f929c61
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I stood by the fire, everyone around me so cheerful, and thought what an odd creature I am - even I know that. Too much space and I'm frightened, too little and I'm frightened. There is indeed no comfortable place for me - I am too near the fire or too far away. Behind
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Tracy Chevalier |
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117c525
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God placed the fossils there when He created the rocks, to test our faith, he responded at last. As He is clearly testing yours Miss Philpot. It is my faith in you that is being tested, I thought.
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page-92
page-93
remarkable-creatures
tracy-chevalier
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Tracy Chevalier |
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4aca105
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had come to London for a reason, not to enjoy anonymity and solitude whilst eyeing the wider horizon.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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b4cf22e
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of all the cities he had been to--Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Salt Lake City--San Francisco was by far the worst.
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san-francisco
cities
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Tracy Chevalier |
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096de07
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pinetums
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Tracy Chevalier |
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d6634a0
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I liked sleeping in the attic. There was no Crucifixion scene hanging at the foot of the bed to trouble me. There were no paintings at all, but the clean scent of linseed oil and the musk of the earth pigments. I liked my view of the New Church, and the quiet. No one came up except him. The girls did not visit me as they sometimes had in the cellar, or secretly search through my things. i felt alone there, perched high above the noisy house..
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Tracy Chevalier |
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64cd274
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I missed the currency of ideas. In London we had been part of a wide circle of solicitors' families, and social occasions had been mentally stimulating as well as entertaining.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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2addc2e
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Although we kept the door ajar so that we could hear, we could not see beyond the gentlemen standing in front of the door in the crowded room. I felt trapped behind a wall of men that separated me from the main event.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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a0788c2
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making:
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Tracy Chevalier |
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096de94
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What's funny about opposites be that wet and dry both has water, boy and girl be about people, Heaven and Hell be the places you go when you die. They all has something in common. So they an't completely different from each other the way people think. Having the one don't mean t'other be gone.
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two-sides-of-the-same-coin
opposites
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Tracy Chevalier |
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9038d90
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Anos de acarrear el agua, retorcer la colada, fregar los suelos, vaciar los orinales, sin que la belleza o el color o la luz entraran en mi vida, se extendian ante mi como una paisaje llano en el que se divisa el mar a lo lejos, pero nunca puedes alcanzarlo. Si no podia trabajar fabricando los colores, si no podia estar cerca de el, no sabia como iba a poder seguir trabajando en aquella casa.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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64fd26e
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Yes, my boy; yes, my girl. The tension between contraries is what makes us ourselves. We have not just one, but the other too, mixing and clashing and sparking inside us. Not just light, but dark. Not just peace, but at war. Not just innocent, but experienced.
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contraries
gray-area
mix-of-traits
william-blake
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Tracy Chevalier |
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4bdb2d3
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I feel like a bird who has been wounded with an arrow and now cannot fly.
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Tracy Chevalier |
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bbe09c1
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Prying out a stump reminded him of how deeply a tree clung to the ground, how tenacious a hold it had on a place. Though he was not a sentimental man - he did not cry when his children died, he simply dug the graves and buried them - James was silent each time he killed a tree, thinking of its time spent in that spot. He never did this with the animals he hunted - they were food, and transient, passing through this world and out again, as p..
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Tracy Chevalier |
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3ed641d
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Stay here and do the packing and let the young one run all over California for you! Don't you always say the success of collecting is in the packing? You're the boss--take the most important role and stop moaning!
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Tracy Chevalier |
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973628c
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not of this world,
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Tracy Chevalier |
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3ceb4a5
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It's simple, Miss Philpot. This is one of God's early models, and He decided to give the subsequent ones smaller eyes." I raised my eyebrows. "Do you mean God rejected it?" "I mean God wanted a better version--the crocodile we know now--and replaced it."
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Tracy Chevalier |
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0e343e7
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marry. Fanny was having all the time what I experienced only the once with Colonel Birch in the orchard. I had my fame to comfort me, and the money it brought in, but that only went so far. I could not hate Fanny, for it were my fault she was crippled. But I could not ever feel friendly towards her nor comfortable round her. That was the case with many people in Lyme. I had come unstuck. I would never be a lady like the Philpots--no one wou..
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Tracy Chevalier |
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49a6ed0
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He could not tell all of the California pines apart, the gray pine from the coulter, the bushop from the knobcone and the Monterey.
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trees
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Tracy Chevalier |
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8233dfa
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Twenty-first-century attitudes towards time and our expectations of story are very different from the shape of Mary Anning's life. She spent day after day, year after year, doing the same thing on the beach. I have taken the events of her life and condensed them to fit into a narrative that is not stretched beyond the reader's patience. Hence events, while in order, do not always coincide exactly with actual dates and time spans. Plus, of c..
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Tracy Chevalier |