We’re employed by the Jesuits at the Smithsonian to find and return zoological specimens. Animals long extinct, mythological creatures the Jesuits created from papier-mâché and whole cloth.
No expense is spared. You are bedecked in the cutest outfits, we bring with us the finest cigars, we go to far away places by train and carriage. It was supposed to be a business arrangement. I fall earnestly in love with you.
We find mermen on the rocks, pterodactyls on the coast, rare flightless birds in Paris.
You always have the sweetest way with me. Our banter is like a titmouse and pussy cat on catnip.
After successfully securing the scarlet diamond, we’re making our way home in first class carriage. A gentleman joins us in the smoking car. He is witty, charming, and handsome. He tells a fantastic tale about hunting live dinosaurs with a special rifle, using apple pie as bait.
We listen with rapt attention. I turn in for a nap. When I awake, you are missing, the man in gone. I find a letter, you’ve eloped and are now Mr. and Mrs. charming-story-teller, and I’m headed back to the Smithsonian castle with dyno tale and broken heart.
In Search of the Unknown by Robert Chambers Book Review.
My highlights and annotations:
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers by Robert W Chambers
Book last read: 2025-03-31 05:23:33
Chapter 210: I
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Chapter progress: 17.17%
Highlight: you embark on a theory for destinations that don’t exist.
Chapter 210: I
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Chapter progress: 17.18%
Highlight: you shall have all the assistance you may require. Can you leave to-night?
Notes: Yes.
Chapter 211: II
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Chapter progress: 17.21%
Highlight: “I’m that man,” said I, filling my pipe and offering him a share of the weed of peace,
Chapter 211: II
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Chapter progress: 17.23%
Highlight: “It hurts a man’s vanity to know he knows a thing that somebody else knows he doesn’t know.
Notes: Agreed.
Chapter 212: III
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Chapter progress: 17.27%
Highlight: “I was a well-bred man,” he sneered; “I’m a Harvard graduate, too, but I live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like.
Notes: Fuck everyone at Harvard, mask wearing, injectable yes-men faggots.
Chapter 213: IV
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Chapter progress: 17.29%
Highlight: She was exceedingly attractive
Notes: how can i help you?
Chapter 215: VI
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Highlight: She was very young, with pretty eyes, a mass of silky brown hair, and a skin as fresh as a rose which had just been rained on.
Chapter 215: VI
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Highlight: To separate fact from fancy has always been difficult for me,
Chapter 215: VI
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Highlight: Monodactyl,” I said, “means a single-toed creature.
Chapter 216: VII
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Highlight: somethin’ went wrong with the earth’s in’ards an’ there was a bust-up.
Notes: Earthquakes in divers places.
Chapter 216: VII
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Highlight: There we bought three pack-mules and started due north on the Great Fur Trail.
Notes: Let’s try it.
Chapter 216: VII
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Highlight: like the smoke from those ancient altars builded before the first blood had been shed on earth.
Notes: Nice.
Chapter 216: VII
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Highlight: adjuring
Notes: Urge or request solemnly and earnestly.
Chapter 216: VII
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Highlight: On them approachin’ mules,” observed William, “there is wimmen.
Notes: Hehe.
Chapter 216: VII
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Chapter progress: 17.52%
Highlight: Now, it is quite certain that never before had William Spike or I beheld so much feminine loveliness in one human body on the back of a mule. She was clad in the daintiest of shooting-kilts, yet there was nothing mannish about her except the way she rode the mule, and that only accentuated her adorable femininity.
Notes: Feminine loveliness on mule.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.54%
Highlight: fearlessly conducting her and myself over that delicate frontier to meet upon the terrain of undisguised flirtation.
Notes: Hehe
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.54%
Highlight: The wilderness is electric. Once within the influence of its currents, human beings become positively or negatively charged, violently attracting or repelling each other.
Notes: See you in the wilderness.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.54%
Highlight: The afternoon sun slanted through the pines; the lake glittered; acres of golden brake perfumed the forest silence, broken only at rare intervals by the distant thunder of a partridge drumming.
Notes: I love you.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.55%
Highlight: Suppose,” said I, solemnly, “I should take you behind that big tree and attempt to kiss you!
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.55%
Highlight: Even hares go mad in March,” she said,
Notes: Hehe
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.55%
Highlight: A faint rose-tint stole over her cheek. A few moments later she said: “You must not do that again.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.55%
Highlight: It takes a pretty girl to look pretty half asleep in a blanket.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.57%
Highlight: you didn’t suppose a monodactyl meant a beast with one leg and one toe!
Notes: Hehe
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.58%
Highlight: The heat was sweet and spicy; the sun drew out the delicate essence of gum and sap, warming volatile juices until they exhaled through the aromatic bark.
Notes: Excellent work.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.6%
Highlight: It was nearly mid-day before the sun became visible through the fine-spun web of mist — a pale spot of gilt in the zenith.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.62%
Highlight: the Spirit of the North
Notes: North wind. Holy spirit.
Chapter 217: VIII
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Chapter progress: 17.62%
Highlight: But the awful experience had produced a shock which resulted in a nervous condition that lasted so long after she returned to New York that the wealthy and eminent specialist who attended her insisted upon taking her to the Riviera and marrying her.
Notes: Lol
Chapter 218: IX
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Chapter progress: 17.64%
Highlight: But to the Yankee nothing excepting the Monroe Doctrine is sacred,
Notes: The money is completely fake.
Chapter 218: IX
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Chapter progress: 17.66%
Highlight: I know how dreadful it would be if this great congress should be compelled to listen to any hoax
Notes: Covid hoax is flu.
Chapter 218: IX
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Chapter progress: 17.71%
Highlight: Will you help me?” she asked.
Notes: Yes.
Chapter 218: IX
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Chapter progress: 17.72%
Highlight: Come to me this evening at nine. I hold for you in store a surprise and pleasure which you do not dream of.”
Notes: Invite.
Chapter 219: X
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Chapter progress: 17.75%
Highlight: either that girl is mad or she is the cleverest woman on earth.”
After a moment I added:
“In either event I am going to marry her.
Notes: Hehe
Chapter 220: XI
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Chapter progress: 17.76%
Highlight: The touch of her silky fingers thrilled me; I was dumb under the enchantment of her beauty;
Chapter 220: XI
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Highlight: I placed my arm around her supple waist and kissed her.
Chapter 221: XII
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Highlight: radiant and lovely in an evening gown of black lace,
Chapter 223: XIV
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Highlight: listening to the hum of the approaching train, which ought presently to bear her away into the North, where nothing could menace her except the brilliant pitfalls of a Christian civilization.
Chapter 224: XV
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Chapter progress: 18.01%
Highlight: rosium oxide,
Chapter 224: XV
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Chapter progress: 18.05%
Highlight: If a man once is even suspected of charlatanism, of sensationalism, of turning his attention to any phenomena not strictly within the proper pale of scientific investigation, that man is doomed to ridicule; his profession disowns him; he becomes a man without honor, without authority. Is it not so?
Notes: Face mask command and control behavior modification. Doctor M.D. Snake Oil Sell Out.
Chapter 225: XVI
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Chapter progress: 18.1%
Highlight: with you for my inspiration. I could even be enthusiastic—”
“About my pies?”
“No — about your eyes.
Notes: Hehe
Chapter 226: XVII
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Chapter progress: 18.21%
Highlight: my theory concerning these invisible creatures is the most extraordinary and audacious theory ever entertained by man since Columbus presumed that there must lie somewhere a hidden continent which nobody had ever seen.”
Notes: Columbus is Jesuit hoax. Smithsonian.
Chapter 226: XVII
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Chapter progress: 18.21%
Highlight: What is the Sphyx?” I asked.
“Have you read De Soto? Or Goya?”
Notes: Ask Circe. Goya Image
Chapter 226: XVII
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Chapter progress: 18.24%
Highlight: a woman’s form, flawless, exquisite as a statue, pure as marble.
Notes: I want you.
Chapter 226: XVII
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Chapter progress: 18.28%
Highlight: I don’t know what my own expression resembled, but I have been given to understand it was idiotic.
Notes: Lol
Chapter 226: XVII
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Chapter progress: 18.3%
Highlight: The salt sea-wind whistled and curled through the crested waves, blowing in perfumed puffs across thickets of sweet bay and cedar.
Notes: We are holding hands in the sand.
Chapter 228: XIX
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Chapter progress: 18.41%
Highlight: Siegfried dragon — a what’s-his-name — er, Pfafner, or Peffer, or—
Notes: Ask Circe. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Siegfried+dragon&ia=web
Chapter 228: XIX
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Chapter progress: 18.41%
Highlight: Oh, it’s not real!’ said Daisy, scornfully; ‘it’s papier-maché.’
Notes: Dyno skeleton is stage prop.
Chapter 228: XIX
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Chapter progress: 18.41%
Highlight: Daisy sat down flat on the sand. It takes a clever girl to do that and retain the respectful deference due her from men. It takes a graceful girl to accomplish it triumphantly when a man is looking.
Notes: Hehe
Chapter 228: XIX
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Chapter progress: 18.41%
Highlight: A man dressed in white linen was tinkering with the vertebrae of the lizard-like tail.
Notes: Jesuit dinosaur hoax. Smithsonian.
Chapter 228: XIX
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Chapter progress: 18.42%
Highlight: The thing,’ said Daisy, ‘is a thermosaurus!
Notes: Lol
Chapter 228: XIX
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Chapter progress: 18.43%
Highlight: Of course you have seen pictures of reconstructed creatures such as the ichthyosaurus, the plesiosaurus, the anthracosaurus, and the thermosaurus?’
Notes: on display. Smithsonian.
Chapter 228: XIX
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Chapter progress: 18.45%
Highlight: As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a shadow,
Chapter 229: XX
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Chapter progress: 18.49%
Highlight: The kree kills a sheep by alighting on its back and tearing away the flesh with its hooked beak until a vital part is reached.
Notes: Mother nature.
Chapter 229: XX
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Chapter progress: 18.5%
Highlight: But the good old admiral secured a few feathers and sent them to the Smithsonian.
Notes: Dear Smith. Enclosed are some feathers. Your friend, Friar tuck.
Chapter 230: XXI
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Chapter progress: 18.54%
Highlight: All night long I dreamed of her; and when the east whitened, I sprang up, the thunder of the ocean in my ears, the strong sea-wind blowing into the open window.
Notes: I love you.
Chapter 230: XXI
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Chapter progress: 18.55%
Highlight: How we laughed as we met in the sea! The white dawn came up out of the depths, the zenith turned to rose and ashes.
Notes: You and me and the sea. I wrote this scene for you: https://pepper.works/charms/report-from-mariposa-beach-intergalactic-finance-minister/
Chapter 230: XXI
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Chapter progress: 18.56%
Highlight: And there in each other’s eyes we read the mystery, and we knew that earth and sky and sea were created for us alone.
Chapter 231: XXII
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Chapter progress: 18.63%
Highlight: Venus of Milo
Notes: Ask Circe – https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Venus+of+Milo&iax=images&ia=images
Chapter 232: XXIII
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Chapter progress: 18.71%
Highlight: I recalled distinctly much that had never happened.
Chapter 233: XXIV
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Chapter progress: 18.76%
Highlight: ‘I cannot help my thoughts!
Chapter 233: XXIV
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Chapter progress: 18.81%
Highlight: Is this real magic?
Notes: Yes.
Chapter 233: XXIV
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Chapter progress: 18.82%
Highlight: what have I done in ages past, that now, reborn, I suffer cruelly — cruelly?
Notes: Good question.
Chapter 233: XXIV
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Chapter progress: 18.83%
Highlight: they knew that my mission could only be accomplished through love.
Chapter 233: XXIV
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Chapter progress: 18.83%
Highlight: You may come over beside me,’ she said, shyly.
Notes: On my way.
Chapter 769: CONTENTS
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Chapter progress: 66.02%
Highlight: the brooding Demon which men call Truth
Notes: I love you.
Clam Race.