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*It is fair to say that the P.E.N. Club celebrations, which lasted a week or more, did not
always stick at quite the same level. I happened to strike a bad day. But an examination of the
speeches (printed under the title Freedom of Expression) shows that almost nobody in our own day is
able to speak out as roundly in favour of intellectual liberty as Milton could do 30c years ago—and
this in spite of the fact Milton was writing in a period of civil war [Orwell's footnote].
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*An interesting illustration of this is the way in which the English flower names which
were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones, snapdragon becoming antirrhinum,
forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc. It is hard to see any practical reason for this change of
fashion: it is probably due to an instinctive turning-away from the more homely word and a vague
feeling that the Greek word is scientific [Orwell's footnote].
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*Example: "Comfort's catholicity of perception and image, strangely Whitmanesque in
range, almost the exact opposite in aesthetic compulsion, continues to evoke that trembling
atmospheric accumulative hinting at a cruel, an inexorably serene timelessness.... Wrey Gardiner
scores by aiming at simple bullseyes with precision. Only they are not so simple, and through this
contented sadness runs more than the surface bitter-sweet of resignation" (Poetry Quarterly)
[Orwell's footnote].
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*One can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not
unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field [Orwell's footnote].
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*Houyhnhnms too old to walk are described as being carried in "sledges" or in "a kind of
vehicle, drawn like a sledge." Presumably these had no wheels [Orwell's footnote].
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