[One of Our Conquerors by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link book
One of Our Conquerors

CHAPTER V
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He is informed by his prostrate servant of a settled habit they have of diligently seeking their Divinity, hidden above, below; and of copiously taking inside them doses of what is denied to their external vision: thus they fortify credence chemically on an abundance of meats and liquors; fire they eat, and they drink fire; they become consequently instinct with fire.

Necessarily therefore they believe in fire.

Believing, they worship.

Worshipping, they march Eastward at morn, Westward at eve.

For that way lies the key, this way the cupboard, of the supplies, their fuel.
According to Stage directions, THE RAJAH AND HIS MINISTER Enter a Gin-Palace .-- It is to witness a service that they have learnt to appreciate as Anglicanly religious.
On the step of the return to their Indian clime, they speak of the hatted sect, which is most, or most commercially, succoured and fattened by our rule there: they wave adieu to the conquering Islanders, as to 'Parsees beneath a cloud.' The two are seen last on the deck of the vessel, in perusal of a medical pamphlet composed of statistics and sketches, traceries, horrid blots, diagrams with numbers referring to notes, of the various maladies caused by the prolonged prosecution of that form of worship.
'But can they suffer so and live ?' exclaims the Rajah, vexed by the physical sympathetic twinges which set him wincing.
'Science,' his Minister answers, 'took them up where Nature, in pity of their martyrdom, dropped them.


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