OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Persian Letters/Letter 100
#### Letter 100

Rica to Rhedi, at Venice
THE caprices of fashion among the French are amazing. They have forgotten how they were dressed this summer; they know as little how they will be dressed in the winter; but, above all, you would never believe how much it costs a husband to dress his wife in the fashion. Where is the use of my giving you a full description of their dress and ornaments? A new fashion would destroy all my labour as it does that of the dressmakers; and before you could receive my letter all would be changed.
A woman who leaves Paris to spend six months in the country, returns from it as out of date as if she had been forgotten for thirty years. The son does not know the portrait of his mother, so strange does the dress in which she was painted appear to him; he imagines that it represents some American, or that the painter wished to express a fancy of his own.
Sometimes the headdresses grow gradually to a great height, until a revolution brings them down suddenly. They grew so lofty once that a woman’s face seemed to be in the centre of her anatomy; at another time it was the feet that occupied that place, the heels forming a pedestal which raised them into the air. Would you believe it? Architects have often been obliged to raise, to lower, or to widen their doors, according to the change in the women’s dresses; and the rules of their art have had to yield to such caprices. Sometimes one sees upon a face an immense quantity of patches, which are all gone next day. Formerly women had figures and teeth; now these are of no consequence. In this changeable nation, whatever ill-natured wags may say, the daughters are differently made from the mothers.
As with their fashions, so is it with their customs and style of living: French manners change with the age of the king. The monarch could even succeed in making his people solemn if he chose to try. He impresses his own characteristics upon the court, the court upon the city, and the city on the provinces. The soul of the sovereign is a mould in which all the others are formed.
Paris, the 8th of the moon of Saphar, 1717.
# Persian Letters/Letter 101
#### Letter 101

Rica to the Same
I told you the other day of the extra-ordinary inconstancy of the French in their fashions. Yet it is inconceivable to what an extent they are infatuated about them; everything is swayed by them: fashion is the rule by which they judge what is done in other nations; whatever is foreign always seems to them ridiculous. I confess that I hardly know how to reconcile this bigoted devotion to their customs with the inconstancy which changes them every day.
When I say that they despise everything foreign, I mean only trifles; for in importent matter they are so diffident as almost to degrade themselves. They confess with the greatest goodwill that the other nations are wiser, if you grant that they are better dressed; they are willing to submit themselves to the laws of a rival nation, provided French wig-makers may decide, like legislators, the form of foreign Perukes. Nothing seems to them more glorious than to see the taste of their cooks reigning from north to south, and the decrees of their tire-women obeyed in every boudoir of Europe.
With these noble advantages, what does it matter to them that their wisdom comes from others, and that they have derived from their neighbours everything relating to political and civil government?
Who would imagine that the most ancient and powerful kingdom in Europe has been governed for ten centuries by laws which were not made for it? If the French had been conquered, it would not be difficult to understand, but they are the conquerors.
They have abandoned the old laws made by their first kings in the general assemblies of the nations; and, singularly enough, the Roman laws which have been substituted, were partly made and partly digested by emperors contemporary with their own legislators.
And, to make the borrowing complete, and in order that all their wisdom might come from others, they have adopted all the constitutions of the Popes, and have made them a new part of their law: a new kind of slavery.
Latterly, it is true, they have drawn up some provincial statutes and by-laws; but they are nearly all taken from the Roman law.
So great is the multitude of adopted, and, so to speak, naturalized laws, that it oppresses alike justice and judges. But these volumes of law are nothing in comparison with the appalling army of glossers, commentators, and compilers, a tribe as feeble by inferiority of their minds, as they are strong by their immense numbers.
This is not all : these foreign laws have introduced formalities so excessive as to be a disgrace to human reason. It would be very difficult to decide whether pedantry has been more hurtful in jurisprudence or in medicine; whether it has played more mischief under the cloak of a lawyer, or the broad brim of a physician; and whether the one has ruined more people than the other has killed.
Paris, the 17th of the moon of Saphar, 1717.
# Persian Letters/Letter 1
#### Letter 1

Usbek to his friend Rustan, at Isfahan
We stayed only one day at Qom. After having said our prayers before the tomb of the virgin who brought forth twelve prophets, we resumed our journey, and yesterday, the twenty-sixth day since our departure from Ispahan, we came to Tauris.
Rica and myself are perhaps the first Persians who have left their native country urged by the thirst for knowledge; who have abandoned the amenities of a tranquil life for the laborious search after wisdom.
Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.
Tell me, without flattery, what is said of our journey: I do not expect that it will be generally commended. Address your letter to Erzeroum, where I shall stay for some time. Farewell, my dear Rustan. Rest assured that in whatever part of the world I may be, you have in me a faithful friend.
Tauris, the 15th of the moon of Saphar , 1711.
# Persian Letters/Letter 10
#### Letter 10

Mirza to his friend Usbek, at Erzeroum
You alone could recompense me for the absence of Rica, and it is only Rica who could console me for yours. We miss you, Usbek; you were the very life of our circle. How hard it is to break away from those attachments in which both the heart and the mind are engaged!
We have great debates here; our talk turns principally on morality. We disputed yesterday whether true happiness consists in pleasure and sensual gratification, or in the practice of virtue.
I have heard you often affirm that men were made to be virtuous, and that justice is as indispensable to existence as life itself. I beg you to explain to me what you mean by this.
I have spoken of this to the mollahs, but they exasperate me with their quotations from the Koran; for I do not consult them as a true believer, but as a man, a citizen, and the father of a family. Farewell.
Isaphan, the last day of the moon of Saphar, 1711.
# Persian Letters/Letter 102
#### Letter 102

Usbek to * * *
They are always talking here of the Constutution. The other day I went into a certain house, where the first person I saw was a fat man with a red face, who said in a loud voice, “I have issued my charge; I shall make no further reply to anything you may say; but read my charge, and you will see that I have solved all your doubts. I sweated over it,” he continued, pressing his brow with his hand; “I have need of all my learning, and was obliged to read many Latin authors.” “I believe it,” said a man who was standing by, “for it is an admirable work; and I altogether defy that Jesuit who comes so often to see you to write a better. “Read it, then,” replied he, “and you will know more of these matters in a quarter of an hour than if I had talked to you about them for a whole day.” In this way he avoided engaging in conversation and the exposure of his own incompetence. But finding himself pressed, he was obliged to leave his entrenchment, and began to utter a mass of theological nonsense, supported by a dervish who received his remarks with the utmost respect. When two men who were present denied any of his principles, he said at once, “It is true; we have so decided it, and we are infallible judges.” “But how,” said I, “are you infallible judges?” “Do you not see,” he replied, “that the Holy Ghost enlightens us?” “That is fortunate,” I rejoined, “for from the style of your talk to-day, I perceive how much you need to be enlightened.”
Paris, the 18th of the first moon of Rebiab, 1717.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/My experiences in Parma with a theodolite and a "dumpy" - Part 1

Part 2→
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# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/My experiences in Parma with a theodolite and a "dumpy" - Part 2

←Part 1
​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/325 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/326 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/327
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/Nips daimon

​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/612 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/613 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/614 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/615 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/616 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/617 ​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/618
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/Joseph William Mallord Turner, R.A.

Illustrated by the author.
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# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/Male and female eggs

Letter to the editor in response to Edward Jesse's article "Curiosities in natural history."
​Page:Once a Week Dec 1861 to June 1862.pdf/480
# Pieces People Ask For/The Dutchman's Serenade

THE DUTCHMAN'S SERENADE.
Vake up, my schveet! Vake up, my lofe!
Der moon dot can't been seen abofe.
Vake oud your eyes, und dough it's late,
I'll make you oud a serenate.
Der shtreet dot's kinder dampy vet,
Und dhere vas no goot blace to set;
My fiddle's getting oud of dune,
So blease get vakey wery soon.
O my lofe! my lofely lofe!
Am you avake ub dhere abofe,
Feeling sad und nice to hear
Schneider's fiddle schrabin near?
Vell, anyvay, obe loose your ear,
Und try to saw if you kin hear
From dem bedclose vat you'm among,
Der little song I'm going to sung:
O lady, vake! Get vake!
Und hear der tale I'll tell;
Oh, you vot's schleebin' sound ub dhere,
I like you pooty vell!
Your plack eyes dhem don't shine
Ven you'm ashleep—so vake!
(Yes, hurry up, und voke up quick,
For gootness cracious sake!)
My schveet imbatience, lofe,
I hobe you vill oxcuse:
I'm singing schveetly (dhere, py Jinks!
Dhere goes a shtring proke loose!)
O putiful, schveet maid!
Oh, vill she ef er voke?
Der moon is mooning—(Jimminy! dhere
Anoder shtring vent proke!)
Oh, say, old schleeby head!
(Now I vas getting mad—
I'll holler now, und I don't care
Uf I vake up her dad!)
I say, you schleeby, vake! Vake oud! Vake loose! Vake ub
Fire! Murder! Police! Vatch!
Oh, cracious! do vake ub!
Dot girl she schleebed—dot rain it rained,
Und I looked shtoopid like a fool,
Vhen mit my fiddle I shneaked off
So vet unci shlobby like a mool!
# Pieces People Ask For/The Fall

THE FALL.
"Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep."—Count Fathom.
Who does not know that dreadful gulf, where Niagara falls,
Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls;
Where down beneath, despair and death in liquid darkness grope,
And upward on the foam there shines a rainbow without hope?
While, hung with clouds of fear and doubt, the unreturning wave
Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave; And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to vale or bliss;
One—only one—hath ever lived to rise from that abyss!
O heaven! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear extreme,
To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream !
In vain, with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and light,
I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current's might;
On—on—still on—direct for doom, the river rushed in force,
And fearfully the stream of time raced with it in its course.
My eyes I closed I dared not look the way towards the goal;
But still I viewed the horrid close, and dreamt it in my soul.
Plainly, as through transparent lids, I saw the fleeting shore,
And lofty trees, like winged things, flit by forevermore!
Plainly—but with no prophet sense—I heard the sullen sound,
The torrent's voice—and felt the mist, like death-sweat, gathering round.
O agony! O life! My home, and those that made it sweet!
Ere I could pray, the torrent lay beneath my very feet.
With frightful whirl, more swift than thought, I passed the dizzy edge;
Bound after bound, with hideous bruise, I dashed from ledge to ledge,
From crag to crag—in speechless pain—from midnight deep to deep;
I did not die, but anguish stunned my senses into sleep.
How long entranced, or whither dived, no clew I have to find.
At last the gradual light of life came dawning o'er my mind;
And through my brain there thrilled a cry,—a cry as shrill as birds
Of vulture or of eagle kind, but this was set to words:—
"It's Edgar Huntley in his cap and nightgown, I declares!
He's been a-walking in his sleep, and pitched all down the stairs!"
Thomas Hood.
# Pieces People Ask For/The Flag

THE FLAG.
AN INCIDENT OF STRAIN'S EXPEDITION.
I never have got the bearings quite,
Though I've followed the course for many a year,
If he was crazy, clean outright,
Or only what you might say was "queer."
He was just a simple sailor man.
I mind it as well as yisterday,
When we messed aboard of the old "Cyane."
Lord! how the time does slip away!
That was five and thirty year ago,
When ships was ships, and men was men,
And sailors wasn't afraid to go
To sea in a Yankee vessel then.
He was only a sort of bosun's mate,
But every inch of him taut and trim;
Stars and anchors and togs of state
Tailors don't build for the likes of him.
He flew a no-account sort of name,
A reg'lar fo'castle "Jim" or "Jack,"
With a plain "McGinnis" abaft the same,
Giner'ly reefed to simple "Mack."
Mack, we allowed, was sorter queer—
Ballast or compass wasn't right;
Till he licked four juicers, one day, a fear
Prevailed that he hadn't larned to fight.
But I reckoned the captain knowed his man,
When he put the flag in his hand the day
That we went ashore from the old "Cyane,"
On a madman's cruise for Darien Bay.
Forty days in the wilderness
We toiled and suffered and starved with Strain.
Losing the number of many a mess
In the Devil's swamps of the Spanish Main.
All of us starved, and many died.
One lay down, in his dull despair;
His stronger messmate went to his side,—
We left them both in the jungle there.
It was hard to part with shipmates so;
But standing by would have done no good.
We heard them moaning all day, so slow
We dragged along through the weary wood.
McGinnis, he suffered the worst of all;
Not that he ever piped his eye,
Or wouldn't have answered to the call
If they'd sounded it for "All hands to die."
I guess 'twould have sounded for him before,
But the grit inside of him kept him strong,
Till we met relief on the river shore;
And we all broke down when it came along.
All but McGinnis. Gaunt and tall,
Touching his hat, and standing square:
"Captain, the flag" … And that was all.
He just keeled over and foundered there.
The flag? We thought he had lost his head,—
It mightn't be much to lose at best,—
Till we came, by and by, to dig his bed,
And we found it folded around his breast.
He lay so calm and smiling there,
With the flag wrapped tight around his heart—
Maybe he saw his course all fair,
Only we couldn't read the chart.
James Jeffrey Roche.
# Pieces People Ask For/The Heritage

THE HERITAGE.
The rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick and stone and gold;
And he inherits soft, white hands,
And tender flesh that feels the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old,— A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man's son inherits cares:
The bank may break, the factory burn;
A breath may burst his bubble shares;
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man's son inherits wants:
His stomach craves for dainty fare;
With sated heart, he hears the pants
Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare,
And wearies in his easy chair,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man's son inherit?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man's son inherit?
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit,
Content that from employment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man's son inherit? A patience learned by being poor; Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it; A fellow-feeling that is sure To make the outcast bless his door,— A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee.
O rich man's son! there is a toil, That with all others level stands: Large charity doth never soil, But only whiten, soft white hands; This is the best crop from thy lands,— A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being rich to hold in fee.
O poor man's son! scorn not thy state: There is worse weariness than thine, In merely being rich and great; Toil only gives the soul to shine, And makes rest fragrant and benign,— A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor to hold in fee.
Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, Are equal in the earth at last; Both, children of the same dear God, Prove title to your heirship vast By record to a well-filled past, A heritage, it seems to me, Well worth a life to hold in fee.
James Russell Lowell.
# Pieces People Ask For/The House in the Meadow

THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW.
It stands in a sunny meadow, The house so mossy and brown, With its cumbrous old stone chimneys, And the gray roof sloping down.
The trees fold their green arms round it,— The trees a century old; And the winds go chanting through them, And the sunbeams drop their gold.
The cowslips spring in the marshes, The roses bloom on the hill, And beside the brook in the pasture The herds go feeding at will.
Within, in the wide old kitchen The old folks sit in the sun That creeps through the sheltering woodbine Till the day is almost done.
Their children have gone and left them; They sit in the sun alone, And the old wife's ears are failing As she harks to the well-known tone
That won her heart in her girlhood, That has soothed her in many a care, And praises her now for the brightness Her old face used to wear.
She thinks again of her bridal,— How, dressed in her robe of white, She stood by her gay young lover In the morning's rosy light.
Oh, the morning is rosy as ever, But the rose from her cheek is fled; And the sunshine still is golden, But it falls on a silvered head.
And the girlhood dreams, once vanished, Come back in her winter-time, Till her feeble pulses tremble With the thrill of springtime's prime.
And, looking forth from the window, She thinks how the trees have grown Since, clad in her bridal whiteness, She crossed the old door-stone.
Though dimmed her eye's bright azure, And dimmed her hair's young gold, The love in her girlhood plighted Has never grown dim or old.
They sat in peace in the sunshine Till the day was almost done. And then, at its close, an angel Stole over the threshold stone.
He folded their hands together, He touched their eyelids with balm, And their last breath floated outward, Like the close of a solemn psalm.
Like a bridal pair they traversed The unseen, mystical road That leads to the Beautiful City Whose Builder and Maker is God.
Perhaps in that miracle country They will give her lost youth back, And the flowers of the vanished springtime Will bloom in the spirit's track.
One draught from the living waters Shall call back his manhood's prime; And eternal years shall measure The love that outlasted time.
# Pieces People Ask For/The Man with the Musket

THE MAN WITH THE MUSKET.
Soldiers, pass on from this rage of renown,
This ant-hill commotion and strife,
Pass by where the marbles and bronzes look down
With their fast-frozen gestures of life,
On, out to the nameless who lie 'neath the gloom
Of the pitying cypress and pine;
Your man is the man of the sword and the plume,
But the man of the musket is mine.
I knew him! by all that is noble, I knew
This commonplace hero I name!
I've camped with him, marched with him, fought with him too,
In the swirl of the fierce battle-flame!
Laughed with him, cried with him, taken a part
Of his canteen and blanket, and known
That the throb of this chivalrous prairie boy's heart,
Was an answering stroke of my own.
I knew him, I tell you! And, also, I knew
When he fell on the battle-swept ridge,
That the poor battered body that lay there in blue
Was only a plank in the bridge
Over which some should pass to fame
That shall shine while the high stars shall shine.
Your hero is known by an echoing name,
But the man of the musket is mine.
I knew him! All through him the good and the bad
Ran together and equally free;
But I judge as I trust Christ will judge the brave lad,
For death made him noble to me.
In the cyclone of war, in the battle's eclipse,
Life shook out its lingering sands,
And he died with the names that he loved on his lips,
His musket still grasped in his hands.
Up close to the flag my soldier went down,
In the salient front of the line:
You may take for your hero the men of renown,
But the man of the musket is mine.
H. S. Taylor, in The Century.
# Pieces People Ask For/The Engineer's Story

THE ENGINEER'S STORY.
Han'som, stranger? Yes, she's purty, an' ez peart ez she kin be.
Clever? W'y, she ain't no chicken, but she's good enough fur me.
What's her name? 'Tis kind o' common, yit I ain't ashamed to tell,
She's ole "Fiddler" Filkin's daughter, and her dad he calls her "Nell."
I wuz drivin' on the Central jist about a year ago,
On the run from Winnemucca up to Reno in Washoe.
There's no end o' skeery places. 'Tain't a road fur one who dreams,
With its curves an' awful tres'les over rocks an' mountain streams.
'Twuz an afternoon in August; we hed got behind an hour,
An' wuz tearin' up the mountain like a summer thundershower,
Round the bends an' by the ledges 'bout ez fast ez we could go,
With the mountain-peaks above us an' the river down below.
Ez we come nigh to a tres'le cros't a holler, deep an' wild,
Suddenly I saw a baby,—'twuz the station-keeper's child,—
Toddlin' right along the timbers with a bold an' fearless tread,
Right afore the locomotive, not a hundred rods ahead.
I jist jumped, an' grabbed the throttle, an' I fa'rly held my breath,
Fur I felt I couldn't stop her till the child was crushed to death,
When a woman sprang afore me like a sudden streak o' light,
Caught the boy, an' twixt the timbers in a second sank from sight.
I jist whis'l'd all the brakes on. An' we worked with might an' main,
Till the fire flew from the drivers, but we couldn't stop the train,
An' it rumbled on above her. How she screamed ez we rolled by!
An' the river roared below us,—I shell hear her till I die.
Then we stopped; the sun wuz shinin'; I ran back along the ridge,
An' I found her—dead? No, livin'! She wuz hangin' to the bridge,
Where she dropped down through the cross-ties with one arm about a sill,
An' the other round the baby, who wuz yellin' fur to kill.
So we saved 'em. She wuz gritty. She's ez peart ez she kin be;
Now we're married; she's no chicken, but she's good enough for me.
An' ef eny ask who owns her, w'y! I ain't ashamed to tell—
She's my wife. Ther' ain't none better than ole Filkin's daughter Nell.
Eugene J. Hall.