OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers/The Exotic and the Unemployed

THE EXOTIC AND THE UNEMPLOYED
WE'VE been taking up the Exotic this week—in poetry and painting, you know, and all that sort of thing—and its influence on our civilization.
Really, it's wonderful—simply wonderful! Quite different from the Erotic, you know, and from the Esoteric, too—though they're all mixed up with it sometimes.
Odd, isn't it, how all these new movements seem to be connected with one another?
One of the chief differences between the Exotic in art and other things—such as the Esoteric, for instance—is that nearly everything Exotic seems to have crept into our art from abroad.
Don't you think some of those foreign ideas are apt to be—well, dangerous? That is, to the untrained mind?
You can carry them too far, you know—and if you do they work into your subconsciousness.
One of the girls—she belongs to the same Little Group of Advanced Thinkers that I do—has been so taken with the Exotic that she wears orchids all the ​time and just simply craves Chinese food. "My love," she said to me only yesterday, "I feel that I must have chop suey or I'll die!" The Exotic has worked into her subliminal being, you know.
She has an intense and passionate nature, and I'm sure I don't know what would become of her if it were not for the spiritual discipline she gets out of modern thought.
Next week we're taking up Syndicalism—it's frightfully interesting, they say, and awfully advanced.
I suppose it's a new kind of philosophy or socialism, or maybe anarchy—or something like that. Most of these new things that come along nowadays are something like that, aren't they?
I'm sure the world owes a debt to its advanced thinkers which it can never repay for always keeping abreast of topics like that.
Not that I've lost my interest in any of the older forms of sociology, you know, just because I am keeping up with the newer phases of it.
Only yesterday I rode about town in the car and had the chauffeur stop a while every place where they were shoveling snow.
The nicest man was with me—he is connected with a settlement, and has given his life to sociology and all that sort of thing.
"Just think," I said to him, "how much real ​practical sociology we have right here before us—all these men shoveling snow—and how little they realize, most of them, that their work is taking them into sociology at all."
He didn't say anything, but he seemed impressed.
And I'm sure the unemployed should be grateful to the serious thinkers for the careful study we give them. Don't you think so?
# Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers/The Little Group Gives a Pagan Masque

THE LITTLE GROUP GIVES A PAGAN MASQUE
The Little Group gave a party
And all of the gods were there,
From Thor to Miss Susan Astarte
With doo-daddles gemming her hair,
Bill Baldur and Jane Aphrodite,
Dick Vishnu and Benny O'Baal,
And Bacchus came on in a nightie
With little pink snakes on the tail;
Latin, Phœnician and Hindu,
Norse and Egyptian and Chink…. Castor was watching his Twin do
Stunts, with a brotherly wink….
Persephone swearing by Hades…. A Norn and a Sibylline Simp…. A Momus, who showed to the ladies
The latest Olympian limp.
Was Hermione present? By Crikey!
(This Crikey's a Whitechapel joss)
Our Hermy attended as Psyche— She siked and she got it across!
And Fothergil Finch, rather gaumy With Cosmic cosmetics, was there,
But the Swami went just as the Swami,
After oiling the kinks in his hair.
I said to Hermione: "Goddess!
You're graceful, you're Greek, you're a rose,
From the pinions that rise from your bodice
To the raddle I note on your toes,
"And Fothergil, here, with his censer,
And his little cheeks crimson as beets,
Your acolyte, perfume-dispenser,
Is sweet as a page out of Keats,
"But tell me, my Dea—my Psyche!— (With your wings outspread as to race
With that swift and acephalous Nike
Who lost her bean somewhere in Thrace)—
"My Thea—my classical pigeon!— Is not your Sincerity shocked
By this giddy revue of religion?…
Are none of these gods being mocked?…
"In the regions unknowable—Thea!— Where the Noumenon chums with the Nous,
Where the Idol gets hep to Idea,
And Pythagoras ogles a Goose,
"In the heavens of Brahm and Osiris,
Are they peeved with this revel, I ask?… Does Pluto like this, where his fire is?… What in hell do they think of this masque?…
"Where the avatars, drowsed in Nirvana,
Lie folded like bees in the comb,
Where Jove with his spangled bandanna
Wipes off the nectareous foam,
"Where the deities, avid of Is-ness,
Resurge from the Flivvers that Were,
While the wild Chaotical Whizness
Gives place to a Cosmic Whir,
"Do they relish this josh of the josses?
Do they lamp not the same with a grouch?
Are you stinging these gloomy Big Bosses
To a keener, immortaler ouch?"
Hermione murmured: "How eerie!
You are voicing my own Inner Mood!
Ah, me! but the world is less dreary
If one is but Understood!
"And I thank you, I thank you, for rising
To my personal point of view…. I thank you for Sympathizing!… Dear man, how you always do!"
# Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers/The Romantic Old Days

THE ROMANTIC OLD DAYS
IT must have been terribly difficult getting around in the days before automobiles were invented, or railroads or anything like that.
Though, of course, it was wonderfully romantic, too.
The old coaching days, particularly, when everybody blew on horns as they drove from town to town, and there were highwaymen and cavaliers with swords and all those people, you know, riding by the coaches.
Don't you just dote on romance? I do!
But, of course, there's no place for it in our hurried modern life, and I suppose we shouldn't regret it.
But now and then I sigh over it. Like dropping a tear, you know, in a dear old chest perfumed with lavender and old roses.
I always say that one can be advanced and in the van of modern progress, and still drop a tear, you know.
Do you think that all this study of sex hygiene means the death of romance?
​It's a serious thought, isn t it?
But what I always say is: "Which of these things will do the most good in the world?"
Especially good to the poor!
You know how frightfully interested I am in the poor.
I make that my test. I always say to myself: "Which will do the most good to the great masses?"
I take such a serious interest in the masses!
We should think twice before we take romance out of their lives and replace it with science of any kind.
For, after all, you know, they represent the Future.
We should all think of the Future!
That's what makes the Feminist Movement such a wonderful thing—it is moving right straight ahead toward the Future!
I'm thinking of being a Suffragist again. I was once, you know, but I resigned.
The sashes and banners are such a frightful shade of yellow, you know. So I quit.
Beauty, after all, is the chief thing. What, after all, do all our reforms come to, if the world is not to be made more beautiful because of them?
And I simply cannot wear yellow.
# Grimm's Household Tales, Volume 1/The Louse and the Flea

Tale 30. Notes
30.—THE LOUSE AND THE FLEA.
A louse and a flea kept house together and were brewing beer in an egg-shell. Then the little louse fell in and burnt herself. On this the little flea began to scream loudly. Then said the little room-door, "Little ​flea, why art thou screaming?" "Because the louse has burnt herself."
Then the little door began to creak. On this a little broom in the corner said, "Why art thou creaking, little door?" "Have I not reason to creak?"
"The little louse has burnt herself, The little flea is weeping."
So the little broom began to sweep frantically. Then a little cart passed by and said, "Why art thou sweeping, little broom?" "Have I not reason to sweep?"
"The little louse has burnt herself, The little flea is weeping,
The little door is creaking."
So the little cart said, "Then I will run," and began to run wildly. Then said the ash-heap by which it ran, "Why art thou running so, little cart?" "Have I not reason to run?"
"The little louse has burnt herself, The little flea is weeping,
The little door is creaking, The little broom is sweeping."
The ash-heap said, "Then I will burn furiously," and began to burn in clear flames. A little tree stood near the ash-heap and said, "Ash-heap, why art thou burning?" "Have I not reason to burn?"
"The little louse has burnt herself, The little flea is weeping,
The little door is creaking, The little broom is sweeping, The little cart is running."
The little tree said, "Then I will shake myself," and began to shake herself so that all her leaves fell off; a girl who came up with her water-pitcher saw that, and said, "Little tree, why art thou shaking thyself?" "Have I not reason to shake myself?"
"The little louse has burnt herself, The little flea is weeping,
The little door is creaking, The little broom is sweeping, The little cart is running, The little ash-heap is burning."
​On this the girl said, "Then I will break my little water-pitcher," and she broke her little water-pitcher. Then said the little spring from which ran the water, "Girl, why art thou breaking thy water-jug?" "Have I not reason to break my water-jug?"
"The little louse has burnt herself, The little flea is weeping,
The little door is creaking, The little broom is sweeping, The little cart is running, The little ash-heap is burning, The little tree is shaking itself."
"Oh, ho!" said the spring, "then I will begin to flow," and began to flow violently. And in the water everything was drowned, the girl, the little tree, the little ash-heap, the little cart, the broom, the little door, the little flea, the little louse, all together.
# Grimm's Household Tales, Volume 1/The Old Man and his Grandson

Tale 78. Notes Other versions: The Old Man and his Grandson
78.—THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON.
There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the table-cloth or let it run out of his mouth. His son and his son's wife were disgusted at this, so the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove, and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough of it. And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said nothing and only sighed. Then they bought him a wooden bowl for a few half-pence, out of which he had to eat.
They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground. "What are you doing there?" asked the ​father. "I am making a little trough," answered the child, "for father and mother to eat out of when I am big."
The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and presently began to cry. Then they took the old grandfather to the table, and henceforth always let him eat with them, and likewise said nothing if he did spill a little of anything.
# Grimm's Goblins (1876)/The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage

Notes
THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE.
Once upon a time a mouse, a bird, and a sausage took it into their heads to keep house together: and to be sure they managed to live for a long time very comfortably and happily; and beside that added a great deal to their store, so as to become very rich. It was the bird's business to fly every day into the forest and bring wood; the mouse had to carry the water, to make the fire, and lay the cloth for dinner; but the sausage was cook to the household.
He who is too well off often begins to be lazy and to long for something fresh. Now it happened one day that our bird met with one of his friends, to whom he boasted greatly of his good plight. But the other bird laughed at him for a poor fool, who worked hard, whilst the two at home had an easy job of it: for when the mouse had made her fire and fetched the water, she went and laid down in her own little room till she was called to lay the cloth; and the sausage sat by the pot, and had nothing to do but to see that the food was well cooked; and when it was meal time, had only to butter, salt, and get it ready to eat, which it could do in a minute. The bird flew home, and having laid his burden on the ground, they all sat down to table, and after they had made their meal slept soundly until the next morning. Could any life be more glorious than this?
The next day the bird, who had been told what to do by his friend, would not go into the forest, saying, he had waited on them, and been made a fool of long enough; they should change about, and take their turns at the work. Although the mouse and the sausage begged ​hard that things might go on as they were, the bird carried the day. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon the sausage to fetch wood, while the mouse was to be cook, and the bird was to bring the water.
What happened by thus taking people from their proper work? The sausage set out towards the wood, the little bird made a fire, the mouse set on the pot, and only waited for the sausage to come home and bring wood for the next day. But the sausage kept away so long that they both thought something must have happened to him, and the bird flew out a little way to look out for him; but not far off he found a dog on the road, who said he had met with a poor little sausage, and taking him for fair prey, had laid hold of him and knocked him down. The bird made a charge against the dog of open robbery and murder; but words were of no use, for the dog said, he found the sausage out of its proper work, and under false colours; and so he was taken for a spy and lost his life. The little bird took up the wood very sorrowfully, and went home and told what he had seen and heard. The mouse and he were very much grieved, but agreed to do their best and keep together.
# Grimm Tales Made Gay/How a Fair One No Hope to His Highness Accorded

She has slid down the channels Of history’s annals  Disguised as the child of a king, But that is a glib And iniquitous fib,  For she never was any such thing: They called her the Fair One  with Golden Locks, And it’s true she had lovers  who swarmed in flocks, But the rest is ironic; Her business chronic Was selling hair-tonic  By bottle and box!
From the dawn till the gloaming She used to sit combing  Her hair in a languorous way. And her suitors would stop To look into the shop,  And stand there the rest of the day. She filled them with mute, but  with deep despair, For she never glanced up, with  a smile, to where They stood about, crushing Each other, and blushing: She simply kept brushing  Her beautiful hair.
But a prince who was passing, Engaged in amassing  Some facts on American life, Was suddenly struck By the fact that his luck  Might give him that girl for a wife! His rashness he didn’t  attempt to excuse, He entered the shop and  he stated his views. Remarking, “My jewel, I’m confident you will Not wish to be cruel  Enough to refuse.
“Most winsome of creatures,” He told her, “your features  Have led me to candidly say That no other beside Would I have for a bride:  We’ll be married a week from to-day! I belong to a long and  a titled line, And the least of your wishes  I won’t decline; Next month I will usher My wife into Russia: — Sweet comber and brusher,  Consider you’re mine!”
She looked at him squarely, Considered him fairly,  Her glance was as keen as a knife, Then she turned up her nose, And, with icy repose,  She answered: “Well, not on your life! You’re not on the paper  the only blot! Do you think I come twelve  in a parcel—what? Me pose as your dearie? Oh, go and chase Peary! You’re making me weary.  Now git!”
 (He got!)
The crowd that had waited Outside was elated  So much by the prince’s mischance, That they greeted with jeers And ironical cheers,  The end of his little romance. They said : “Did it hurt  when the ground you hit?” They searched for some mark  where the prince had lit, And as he looked colder, They only grew bolder, And tapped on his shoulder  With: “Tag! You’re It!”
The lengthy discussion That sensitive Russian  Compiled on the U. S. A. Was read by the maid, As she carelessly played  With her beautiful hair one day. “The talk you hear in that primitive land,” He wrote, “nobody  can understand.” “Somebody who guffed him,” She said, “has stuffed him, And easily bluffed him  To beat the band!”
 The Moral: The people across the brine  Are exceedingly strong on Auld Lang Syne,  But they’re lost in the push when they strike  a gang  That is strong on American new line slang!
# Grimm Tales Made Gay/How Little Red Riding Hood Came to Be Eaten

Most worthy of praise Were the virtuous ways  Of Little Red Riding Hood’s Ma, And no one was ever More cautious and clever  Than Little Red Riding Hood’s Pa. They never mislead, For they meant what they said,  And would frequently say what they meant: And the way she should go They were careful to show,  And the way that they showed her, she went. For obedience she was effusively thanked, And for anything else she was carefully spanked.
It thus isn’t strange That Red Riding Hood’s range  Of virtues so steadily grew, That soon she was prizes Of different sizes,  And golden encomiums, too! As a general rule She was head of her school,  And at six was so notably smart That they gave her a cheque For reciting, “The Wreck  of the Hesperus,” wholly by heart! And you all will applaud her the more, I am sure, When I add that this money she gave to the poor.
At eleven this lass Had a Sunday-school class,  At twelve wrote a volume of verse, At thirteen was yearning For glory, and learning  To be a professional nurse. To a glorious height The young paragon might  Have grown, if not nipped in the bud, But the following year Struck her smiling career  With a dull and a sickening thud! (I have shed a great tear at the thought of her pain, And must copy my manuscript over again!)
Not dreaming of harm One day on her arm  A basket she hung. It was filled With jellies, and ices, And gruel, and spices,  And chicken-legs, carefully grilled, And a savory stew, And a novel or two  She’d persuaded a neighbor to loan, And a hot-water can, And a Japanese fan,  And a bottle of eau-de-cologne, And the rest of the things that your family fill Your room with, whenever you chance to be ill!
She expected to find Her decrepit but kind  Old Grandmother waiting her call, But the visage that met her Completely upset her:  It wasn’t familiar at all! With a whitening cheek She started to speak,  But her peril she instantly saw: — Her Grandma had fled, And she’d tackled instead  Four merciless Paws and a Maw! When the neighbors came running, the wolf to subdue, He was licking his chops, (and Red Riding Hood’s, too!)
At this terrible tale Some readers will pale,  And others with horror grow dumb, And yet it was better, I fear, he should get her:  Just think what she might have become! For an infant so keen Might in future have been  A woman of awful renown, Who carried on fights For her feminine rights  As the Mare of an Arkansas town. She might have continued the crime of her ’teens, And come to write verse for the Big Magazines!
The Moral: There’s nothing much glummer  Than children whose talents appall: One much prefers those who are dumber,  But as for the paragons small, If a swallow cannot make a summer  It can bring on a summary fall!
# Grimm Tales Made Gay/How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted

A poet had a cat. There is nothing odd in that—  (I might make a little pun about the Mews!) But what is really more Remarkable, she wore  A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.  And I doubt me greatly whether  E’er you heard the like of that:  Pointed shoes of patent-leather  On a cat!
His time he used to pass Writing sonnets, on the grass—  (I might say something good on pen and sward!) While the cat sat near at hand, Trying hard to understand  The poems he occasionally roared.  (I myself possess a feline,  But when poetry I roar  He is sure to make a bee-line  For the door.)
The poet, cent by cent, All his patrimony spent—  (I might tell how he went from verse to werse!) Till the cat was sure she could, By advising, do him good.  So addressed him in a manner that was terse:  “We are bound toward the scuppers,  And the time has come to act,  Or we’ll both be on our uppers  For a fact!”
On her boot she fixed her eye, But the boot made no reply—  (I might say: “Couldn’t speak to save its sole!”) And the foolish bard, instead Of responding, only read  A verse that wasn’t bad upon the whole.  And it pleased the cat so greatly,  Though she knew not what it meant,  That I’ll quote approximately  How it went: —
“If I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree” —  (I might put in: “I think I’d just as leaf!”) “Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough” —  Well, he’d plagiarized it bodily, in brief!  But that cat of simple breeding  Couldn’t read the lines between,  So she took it to a leading  Magazine.
She was jarred and very sore When they showed her to the door.  (I might hit off the door that was a jar!) To the spot she swift returned Where the poet sighed and yearned,  And she told him that he’d gone a little far.  “Your performance with this rhyme has  Made me absolutely sick,”  She remarked. “I think the time has  Come to kick!”
I could fill up half the page With descriptions of her rage—  (I might say that she went a bit too fur!) When he smiled and murmured: “Shoo!” “There is one thing I can do!”  She answered with a wrathful kind of purr.  “You may shoo me, and it suit you,  But I feel my conscience bid  Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!”  (Which she did.)
The Moral of the plot  (Though I say it, as should not!) Is: An editor is difficult to suit.  But again there’re other times When the man who fashions rhymes  Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot!
# Grimm Tales Made Gay/How a Fisherman Corked up His Foe in a Jar

A fisherman lived on the shore,  (It’s a habit that fishers affect,) And his life was a hideous bore:  He had nothing to do but collect Continual harvests of seaweed and shells,  Which he stuck upon photograph frames, To sell to the guests in the summer hotels  With the quite inappropriate names!
He would wander along by the edge  Of the sea, and I know for a fact From the pools with a portable dredge  He would curious creatures extract: And, during the season, he always took lots  Of tourists out fishing for bass, And showed them politely impossible spots,  In the culpable way of his class.
It happened one day, as afar  He roved on the glistening strand, That he chanced on a curious jar,  Which lay on a hummock of sand. It was closed at the mouth with a cork and a seal,  And over the top there was tied A cloth, and the fisherman couldn’t but feel  That he ought to see what was inside.
But what were his fear and surprise  When the stopper he held in his hand! For a genie of singular size  Appeared in a trice on the sand, Who said in the roughest and rudest of tones:  “A monster you’ve foolishly freed! I shall simply make way with you, body and bones,  And that with phenomenal speed!”
The fisherman looked in his face,  And answered him boldly: “My friend, How you ever were packed in that space  Is something I don’t comprehend. Pray do me the favor to show me how you  Can do it, as large as you are.” The genie retorted: “That’s just what I’ll do!”  And promptly reëntered the jar.
The fisherman corked him up tight:  The genie protested and raved, But for all he accomplished, he might  As well all his shouting have saved. And, whenever a generous bonus is paid,  The fisherman willingly tells The singular tale of this trick that he played,  To the guests in the summer hotels.
The Moral: When fortune you strike,  And you’ve slipped through a dangerous crack, Get as forward as ever you like,  But never, oh, never get back!