"Burton had a most vivid way of putting things — especially of the East. He had both a fine imaginative power and a memory richly stored not only from study but from personal experience. As he talked, fancy seemed to run riot in its alluring power; and the whole world of thought seemed to flame with gorgeous colour. Burton knew the East. Its brilliant dawns and sunsets; its rich tropic vegetation, and its arid fiery deserts; its cool, dark mosques and temples; its crowded bazaars; its narrow streets; its windows guarded for out-looking and from in-looking eyes; the pride and swagger of its passionate men, and the mysteries of its veiled women; its romances; its beauty; its horrors."
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Poets from EnglandDiplomats of the United KingdomLinguists from EnglandTravel writersExplorers from England
Original Language: English
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Sources
Bram Stoker, on a meeting of Burton on 18 September 1886, in Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1907), Vol. 1, p. Page 230
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton
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Richard Francis Burton
Sir Richard Francis Burton (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British consul, explorer, translator, writer, poet, Orientalist and swordsman known for his often-unprecedented exploits of travel and exploration as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.
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