Thus, they have heard the Escape from Hottentot-Land, the Accursèd Ruby of Mogok, the Ship-wrecks in Indies East and West,— an Herodotic Web of Adventures and Curiosities selected, the Revᵈ implies, for their moral usefulness, whilst avoiding others not as suitable in the Hearing of Youth.
* * * * * * * * * *
Line 9 Vulgarized:
Reverend Cherrycoke has told a number of stories since arriving in October including the one where they escaped from southwestern Africa (probably because they did some colonial racisms), one where they fell victim to the curse of a ruby from the mines of Mogok in Burmah, and two shipwreck stories (one in waters in the Americas and one in the waters of India). These stories all contained some life lesson for the edification of the children and no sexy time skin slappers.
Subtext:
The titles of these tales all indicate some kind of exciting, over-the-top action thriller, less moral edutainment and more chase scenes, shark attacks, and Snake Plisskens. Just using the adjective "Herodotic" to suggest Reverend Cherrycoke's tales are like those of Herodotus, a known unreliable narrator who many believe punched up his histories to make them more exciting. At least that's what academics and historians who know who Herodotus was (which is probably all of them). What I'm saying is Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman never wrote a comic book about him so how was I supposed to know anything about him?!
It's a bit disappointing to hear that the Reverend is censoring himself on account of his audience being composed of groups of children because that means he's going to be more The Everlasting Story of Nory and less The Fermata which is really causing a major depression in my pants.
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