OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/And … After?

​AND . . . AFTER? Such is the drama of the war as I have seen it. How far it has gone, when it will close and the curtain fall on it none of us can say. With five millions already dead, twice as many wounded, one kingdom in ruins, another desolate from disease, the larger part of Europe under arms, civil life paralysed, social existence overshadowed by a mourning that enters into nearly every household; with a war still in progress compared with which all other wars sink into insignificance; with a public debt which Pitt, Fox, and Burke (who thought £240,000,000 frightful) would have considered certain to sink the ship of State; with taxation such as our fathers never conceived possible—what will be our condition when this hideous war comes to an end?
It is dangerous to prophesy, but, as far as we can judge, the least of the results will be that we shall all be poorer; that great fortunes will have diminished and vast enterprises disappeared; that what remains of our savings will have a different value; that some of us who thought we had earned our rest will have to go on working; that the industrial classes will have a time ​of privation; and that (most touching of human tragedies) the old and helpless and dependent among the very poor will more than ever feel themselves to be in the way, filling the beds and eating the bread of the children.
Yet none can say. It is one of the paradoxes of history that after the longest and most exhausting wars, the accumulation of the largest national debts and the imposition of the heaviest taxations, nations have rapidly become rich. Although 1817 was a time of extreme distress in these islands, England prospered after the Napoleonic wars. Although 1871 was a time of fierce trial in Paris, yet France recovered herself quickly after the war with Germany. And though the Civil war in America left poverty in its immediate trail, the United States have since amassed boundless wealth.
So do the nations, generation after generation, renew their strength even after the most prolonged campaigns. But beyond the economic loss there will in this case be the physical loss of ten millions, perhaps, of the young manhood of Europe dead, and ten other millions permanently disabled, with all the injury to the race thereby resulting; and beyond the physical loss there will be the intellectual loss in the ruthless destruction of those ancient monuments which had linked us with the past; and beyond the intellectual loss there will be the moral loss in the ​uprooting of that sympathy of nation with nation which had seemed to unite us with the future. As a consequence of this war a great part of Europe will be closed to some of us for the rest of our natural lives, and the world will contain more than a hundred millions fewer of our fellow- creatures in whose welfare we shall take joy.
# The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/"Why Isn't the House Cheering"

​"WHY ISN'T THE HOUSE CHEERING?" Then came our Prime Minister's passionate, fiery, yet dignified and even exalted denunciation of the proposal of Germany that we should trade with her in our neutrality by committing treachery to France and Belgium—("To accept your infamous offer would be to cover the glorious name of England with undying shame"); then the announcement of the ultimatum sent by Great Britain to Germany demanding an assurance that the neutrality of Belgium should be respected; and finally that speech of John Redmond's, which, spoken on the very top of the crisis that had threatened to bring a fratricidal war into Ireland, has been, perhaps, the most thrilling and dramatic utterance yet produced by the war." I tell the Government they may take every British soldier out of Ireland to meet the enemy of the Empire. Ireland's sons will take care of Ireland. The Catholics of the South will stand shoulder to shoulder with their Protestant fellow-countrymen of the North to fight the common foe."
It was another appeal to the gentleman in the British nation, and in one moment it swept the bitter waters of the Home Rule crisis out of all ​sight and memory. I have heard a Cabinet Minister say that, as he listened to Redmond's speech, he was surprised at the silence with which it was received. "Why isn't the House cheering?" he had asked himself. But all at once he had felt his eyes swimming and his throat tightening, and then he had understood.
# The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/"Your King and Country Need You"

​"YOUR KING AND COUNTRY NEED YOU" What a mockery! What a waste! What a hideous reversion! What a confession of blank failure on the part of civilization, including morality and religion! But, happily, the invisible powers of evil had not got it all their own way, even on that morning of August 5. Out of the very shadow of battle great things were already being born among the children of men, and chief among them were the spirits of sacrifice and brotherhood. Even the cruel loss of nearly all that makes human life worth living— ​cleanliness and purity and exemption from foul disease—could be borne for the defence of truth and freedom. And then it was worth a world of suffering to realise the first-fruits of that golden age of brotherhood among all the nations of the earth (except those of our enemy) which has been the peace-dream of humanity for countless centuries.
We in Great Britain have no reason to be ashamed of how our country answered the call. A few years before the outbreak of war I talked about conscription with a British admiral in the cabin of his flagship. "There's not the slightest necessity for it in this country," said the admiral. The moment war was declared the whole nation would rise to it. A great thrill would pass over our people from end to end of the land, and we should have millions flocking to the colours.
The old sailor proved to be a true prophet. None of us can ever forget the spontaneous response in August 1914, to the cry, "Your King and country need you." To such as, like myself, are on the shadowed side of the hill of life, and therefore too old for service, it was a profoundly moving thing to see how swiftly our immense voluntary army sprang (as by a miracle) out of the earth, to look at the long lines of young soldiers passing with their regular step through the streets of London, to think of the situations given up, of the young wives and little children ​living at home on shortened means, and of the risk taken of life being lost just when it is most precious and most sweet.
What was the motive-power that impelled the young manhood of Great Britain to this tremendous sacrifice? The thought of our country's danger? The danger to France? The danger to Belgium? The fact that a man named Palmerston had pledged his solemn word for them long years before they were born, or even the mothers who bore them were born, that they would go to their deaths rather than allow a great crime to be committed or England's oath be broken? I don't know. I do not believe anybody knows. But I am not ashamed of my tears when I remember it all, and sure I am that in those first critical days of the war the invisible powers of justice must have been fighting on our side.
# The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/"We Shall Never Massacre Belgian Women"

​"WE SHALL NEVER MASSACRE BELGIAN WOMEN" One of the writers who performed the same kind of moral somersault was Gerhart Hauptmann, author of a Socialist drama called "The Weavers," and, rumour says, protege (what frightful irony!) of the Crown Prince. Hauptmann knew well (none better) that a vast proportion of the human family live perpetually on the borderland of want, and that of all who suffer by war the poor suffer most. Yet he wrote (and a degenerate son of the great Norwegian liberator, Björnsen, published) a letter, in which, after telling the poor of his people that "heaven alone knew" why their enemies were assailing them, he called on them (in effect) to avenge unnameable atrocities, which he alleged, without a particle of proof, had been committed on innocent Germans living abroad, and then said, in allusion to Mr. Maeterlinck, "I can assure him that, although 'barbarous Germans,' we shall never be so cowardly as to massacre or martyr the Belgian women and children." ​This was written in August 1914, at the very hour, as the world now knows, when the German soldiers in Liege were shooting, bayoneting, and burning alive old men and little children, raping nuns in their convents and young girls in the open streets. But the invisible powers of evil have no mercy on their instruments after they have worked their will, and Time has turned them into objects of contempt.
Nor were the German people themselves, any more than their master-spirits and spokesmen, spared the shame of their duplicity in those early days of August 1914. A large group of them, including commercial and professional men, drew up a long address to the neutral countries, in which they said that down to the eleventh hour they had "never dreamt of war," never thought of depriving other nations of light and air or of thrusting anybody from his place. And yet the ink of their protest was not yet dry when they gave themselves the lie by showing that down to the last detail of preparation they had everything ready for the forthcoming struggle.
Englishmen who were in Berlin and Cologne on July 31, and August 1 (before any of the nations had declared war on Germany), could see what was happening, though no telegrams or newspapers had yet made known the news. A tingling atmosphere of joyous expectation in the streets; the cafés and beer-gardens crowded with civilians in ​soldiers' uniforms; orchestras striking up patriotic anthems; excited groups singing "Deutschland über Alles," or rising to their feet and jingling glasses; then the lights put out, and a general rush made for the railway stations—everybody equipped, and knowing his duty and his destination.
# The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/A Glimpse of the King's Son

​A GLIMPSE OF THE KING'S SON One glimpse at the end of my little motor tour seemed to send a flash of light through the drama of the past 365 days. It was of our young Prince of Wales, home for a short holiday from the front. I had seen the King's son only once before—at his investiture in Carnarvon Castle. How long ago that seemed! In actual truth "no human creature dreamt of war" that day, although the shadow of it was even then hanging over our heads.
Some of us who have witnessed most of the great pageants of the world thought we had never seen the like of that spectacle—the grey old ruins, roofless and partly clothed by lichen and moss, the vast multitude of spectators, the brilliant sunshine, the booming of the guns from the warships in the bay outside, the screaming of the seagulls overhead, the massed Welsh choirs singing "Land of my Fathers," and, above all, the boy of eighteen, beautiful as a fairy prince in his blue costume, walking hand in hand ​between the King and Queen to be presented to his people at the castle gate.
And now he was home for a little while from that blackened waste across the sea, which had been trodden into desolation under the heel of a ruthless aggressor and was still shrieking as with the screams of hell. He had gone there willingly, eagerly, enthusiastically, doing the work and sharing the risk of every other soldier of the King, and he would go back, in another few days, although he had more to lose by going than any other young man on the battle-front—a throne. But if he lives to ascend it he will have his reward. England will not forget.
When I hear people say that Great Britain is not yet awake to the fact that she is at war I wonder where they keep their eyes. If I had been a Rip Van Winkle, suddenly awakened after twenty years of sleep, or yet an inhabitant of Mars dropped down on our part of this planet, I think I should have known in any five minutes of any day since August 5, 1914, that Great Britain was at war. Such a spirit has never breathed through our Empire during my time, or yet through any other empire of which I have any knowledge. Everybody, or almost everybody, doing something for England, and few or none idle who are of military age except such as have heavy burdens or secret disabilities into which I dare not pry.
​It is not alone in Flanders or on the North Sea that our country's battle is being fought, and when I think I hear the hammering on ten thousand anvils in the forges of Woolwich, Newcastle, and Glasgow, and the thud of picks in the coal and iron mines of Cardiff, Wigan, and Cleator Moor, where hundreds of thousands of men are working long shifts day and night, half-naked under the fierce heat of furnaces, sometimes half choked by the escaping fumes of firedamp, I tell myself it is not for me, too old for active service and only able to use a pen, to dishonour England, and her Empire, in the presence of her Allies, or weaken her in the face of her enemies, by one word of complaint against the young manhood of my country.
# The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/Christmas in the Trenches

​CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES Then Christmas in the trenches—we had glimpses of that, too. The people who governed nations from their Parliament Houses might have doubts about the peace-dream of the poets, the Utopia of universal brotherhood which gleams somewhere ahead in the far future of humanity, but the soldiers on the battlefields, even in the ​welter of blood and death, had somehow heard the call of it.
The appeal of the Pope for a truce to hostilities during the days sacred to the Christian faith had fallen on deaf ears in the Cabinets of Europe. In that zone of mutual deception which is another name for war, neither of the belligerents could trust the other not to take an unfair advantage of any respite from slaying that might be called in the name of Christ, and, therefore, the armies must continue to fight. But the men in the trenches had found for themselves a better way. When Christmas Eve came they began—German and British—to talk about Christmas Eves which they had spent at home. Visions arose of crowded streets, of shops decorated with holly and mistletoe, of churches with little candle-lit Nativities, of Christmas-trees at home laden with fairy lamps and presents, of children sitting up late to dance and laugh and then hanging up their stockings before going to bed to dream of Santa Claus, of church bells ringing for midnight mass, and, last of all, of the "waits" by the old cross in the market-place in the midst of the winter frost and snow.
Suddenly in one of the trenches some of the soldiers began to sing. They sang a Christmas carol, "While shepherds watched their flocks by night." The soldiers in the parallel trenches of the enemy heard it, knew what it was, and joined ​in with another Christmas carol, sung in their own language. In a little while both sides were singing, each in its turn, listening and replying, all along the two dark gullies that stretched across blood-stained Europe. Then Chinese lanterns were lit and stuck up on the head of the trenches, and salutations were shouted across the narrow ground between. "Merry Christmas to you, Fritz, old man!" "Same to you, Tommy!" And then next morning, Christmas morning, in the grey light of the late dawn, some daring soul, clambering over the trench head, marched boldly up to the line of the enemy with the salutation of the sacred day. In another moment everybody was up and out, shaking hands, and posing for photographs, friend and foe, German and British.
After a while they became aware that the ground they were standing on was like an unroofed charnel-house, littered over with the bodies of their unburied dead. So they set themselves to cover up their comrades in the earth, never asking which was British and which German, but laying them all together in the everlasting brotherhood of death—that English boy whose mother was waiting for him in England, and this German lad whose young wife was weeping in his German home.
My God, why do men make wars?
# The First and Last Journeys of Thoreau, Volume 1

THE FIRST AND LAST
JOURNEYS OF THOREAU
Vol. I
THE
FIRST AND LAST JOURNEYS
OF
THOREAU
LATELY DISCOVERED AMONG HIS UNPUBLISHED JOURNALS
AND MANUSCRIPTS
EDITED BY
FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN
BOSTON : MDCDV
PRINTED EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF
THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY
Copyright, 1905, by
THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY
All rights reserved
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# The First Voyage Round the World/front matter

COUNCIL
OF
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
The Right Hon. Sir DAVID DUNDAS, President.
| Rear-Admiral C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Vice-Presidents. |
| Major-General Sir HENRY RAWLINSON, K.C.B., F.R.S., Pres.R.G.S. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Vice-Presidents. |
W. A. TYSSEN AMHURST, Esq. Rev. Dr. GEORGE P. BADGER, D.C.L., F.R.S. J. BARROW, Esq., F.R.S. Vice-Admiral R. COLLINSON, C.B. Captain COLOMB, R.N. W. E. FRERE, Esq. EGERTON V. HARCOURT, Esq. JOHN WINTER JONES, Esq., F.S.A. R. H. MAJOR, Esq., F.S.A. Sir CHARLES NICHOLSON, Bart., D.C.L. Sir W. STIRLING MAXWELL, Bart. Vice-Admiral ERASMUS OMMANNEY, C.B., F.R.S. Rear-Admiral SHERARD OSBORN, C.B. The Lord STANLEY of Alderley. EDWARD THOMAS, Esq., F.R.S. The Hon. FREDERICK WALPOLE, M.P.
CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq., C.B., F.R.S., Sec.R.G.S., Honorary Secretary.
# The English and Scottish Popular Ballads/Part 8/Chapter 256

A
'MY luve she lives in Lincolnshire, I wat she's neither black nor broun, But her hair is like the thread o gowd, Aye an it waur weel kaim d doun.' She's pued the black mask owre her face, An blinkit gaily wi her ee: RR'rro will you to my weddin come, An will you bear me gude companie?' 'I winna to your weddin come, Nor [will] I bear you gude companie, Unless you be the bride yoursell, An me the bridegroom to be.' 'For me to be the bride mysel, An you the bonnie bridegroom to be-+--+- Cheer up you heart, Sweet Willie,' she said, 'For that's the day you'll never see. 'Gin you waur on your saddle set, An gaily ridin on the way, You'll hae nae mair mind o Alison Than she waur dead an laid in clay.' When he was on his saiddle set, An slowly ridin on the way, He had mair mind o Alison Than he had o the licht o day. He saw a hart draw near a hare, An aye that hare drew near a toun, An that same hart did get a hare, But the gentle knicht got neer a toun. He leant him owre his saiddle-bow, An his heart did brak in pieces three; Wi sighen said him Sweet Willie, 'The pains o luve hae taen hald o me.' . . . . . . . . There cam a white horse an a letter, That stopped the weddin speidilie. She leant her back on her bed-side, An her heart did brak in pieces three; She was buried an bemoaned, But the birds waur Willie's companie.
# The English and Scottish Popular Ballads/Part 8/Chapter 261

A
'TWAS early on a May morning Lady Isabel combd her hair; But little kent she, or the morn She woud never comb it mair. 'Twas early on a May morning Lady Isabel rang the keys; But little kint she, or the morn A fey woman she was. Ben it came her step-mother, As white 's the lily flower: 'It's tauld me this day, Isabel, You are your father's whore.' 'O them that tauld you that, mother, I wish they neer drink wine; For if I be the same woman My ain sell drees the pine. 'And them that's tauld you that, mother, I wish they neer drink ale; For if I be the same woman My ain sell drees the dail.' 'It may be very well seen, Isabel, It may be very well seen; He buys to you the damask gowns, To me the dowie green.' 'Ye are of age and I am young, And young amo my flowers; The fairer that my claithing be, The mair honour is yours. 'I hae a love beyond the sea, And far ayont the faem; For ilka gown my father buys me, My ain luve sends me ten.' 'Come ben, come ben now, Lady Isabel, And drink the wine wi me; I hae twa jewels in ae coffer, And nae o them I'll gie [ye].' 'Stay still, stay still, my mother dear, Stay still a little while, Till I gang into Marykirk; It's but a little mile.' When she gaed on to Marykirk, And into Mary's quire, There she saw her ain mother Sit in a gowden chair. 'O will I leave the lands, mother? Or shall I sail the sea? Or shall I drink this dowie drink That is prepar'd for me?' 'Ye winna leave the lands, daughter, Nor will ye sail the sea, But ye will drink this dowie drink This woman's prepar'd for thee. 'Your bed is made in a better place Than ever hers will be, And ere ye're cauld into the room Ye will be there wi me.' 'Come in, come in now, Lady Isabel, And drink the wine wi me; I hae twa jewels in ae coffer, And ane o them I'll gie [ye].' 'Stay still, stay still, my mother dear, Stay still a little wee, Till I gang to yon garden green, My Maries a' to see.' To some she gae the broach, the broach, To some she gae a ring; But wae befa her step-mother! To her she gae nae thing. 'Come in, come in now, Lady Isabel, And drink the wine wi me; I hae twa jewels in ae coffer, And ane o them I'll gie [ye].' Slowly to the bower she came, And slowly enterd in, And being full o courtesie, Says, Begin, mother, begin. She put it till her cheek, her cheek, Sae did she till her chin, Sae did she till her fu fause lips, But never a drap gaed in. Lady Isabel put it till her cheek, Sae did she till her chin, Sae did she till her rosy lips, And the rank poison gaed in. 'O take this cup frae me, mother, O take this cup frae me; My bed is made in a better place Than ever yours will be. 'My bed is in the heavens high, Amang the angels fine; But yours is in the lowest hell, To drie torment and pine.' Nae moan was made for Lady Isabel In bower where she lay dead, But a' was for that ill woman, In the fields mad she gaed.