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Pierre Loti (1850-1923) pseudonym of Louis-marie-julien Viaud, a novelist whose exoticism made him popular in his time and whose themes anticipated some of the central preoccupations of French literature between World Wars. Loti's career as a naval officer took him to the Middle and Far East, thus providing him with the exotic settings of his novels and reminiscences. Some of his books include Voyages 1872-1913 and L'Inde sans les Anglais.
He expressed his esteem for India in the following pregnant words:
"And now I salute thee with awe, with veneration, and wonder, ancient India, of whom I am the adept, the India of the highest splendor of art and philosophy. May thy awakening astonish the Occident, decadent, mean, daily dwindling, slayer of nations, slayer of Gods, slayer of souls, which yet bows down still, ancient India, before the prodigies of thy primordial conceptions!"
(source: Sanskrit Civilization - G. R. Josyer International Academy of Sanskrit Research. p. 1)
198. William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838-1903) Irish historian, essayist, author of The Substance
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