OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 136/Issue 1754/The Beguiling of Merlin

* THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN.
* Glamor of bud, and blossom, and sweet May,
* Glamor of life, and of love's burgeoning,
* When through gray mists of eld a second spring
* Glances a moment, ﬂying — ah, welaway,
* Needed there other witcheries, O fay,
* Of olden rune's low crooning, and the swing
* And rhythm of lissom limbs in mystic ring,
* To charm the sage into thy thrall and prey?
* But, ah, the horror of those eyes athirst
* For draughts of fuller life, that drink for these
* Thy soul's sly poison to the subtler lees,
* Knowing it poison — seeing the past accurst,
* To-day a lie, hope like a bubble burst,
* And worse than death creep on by slow degrees!
* Examiner.Frank T. Marzials
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 136/Issue 1755/Cassandra's Speech

* CASSANDRA'S SPEECH.
* ["AGAMEMNON," lines 1185-1212.]
* Aha! aha! Oh woes on woes!
* Again the bitter toil of faithful seer
* My whirling brain doth vex with first-born bode.
* See ye those young ones seated at the house, —
* Such spectral forms as are the stuff of dreams?
* Children (belike) who died by deed of kin,
* They hold, ye mark, their hands all filled with flesh,
* Their own flesh, banquet-ripe, aye, (piteous dish!)
* The loathsome meal of which their father ate.
* I tell you 'tis to punish this he plots,
* The dastard lion, slinking in the lair
* He watched, forsooth l what time my master came, —
* My master, for I cannot choose but serve.
* He knows not, he, the captain of the fleet,
* Troy's devastator, how the lewd she-whelp
* With fawning tongue such welcome hath spun out,
* As shall, like Ate, win to secret doom.
* So far her daring goes. Man-slayer she,
* Yet woman. By what name of hateful beast
* Shall she be rightly called? Or two-faced snake,
* Or rock-housed Scylla, bane of ships and men,
* Her offspring Death, her breath a ruthless curse
* Blown homewards? How she raised her cry of joy,
* The shameless one, as if for battle turned!
* What glee she feigns, too, at the safe return!
* And now what care I, if thou listen not?
* The day will come. And thou shalt see, and soon
* Shalt, pitying, say I was too true a seer.
* Spectator.E. Welsh.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 136/Issue 1753/Valentine's Day, 1873

* VALENTINE'S DAY, 1873.
* AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.
* Oh! I wish I were a tiny browny bird from out the south,
* Settled among the alder-holts, and twittering by the stream;
* I would put my tiny tail down, and put up my tiny mouth,
* And sing my tiny life away in one melodious dream.
* I would sing about the blossoms, and the sunshine and the sky.
* And the tiny wife I meant to have in such a cosy nest;
* And if some one came and shot me dead, why then I could but die,
* With my tiny life and tiny song just ended at their best.
* Macmillan's Magazine.Charles Kingsley
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 136/Issue 1754/Sleep

* SLEEP.
* O gentle sleep! the gracious gift and blest,
* Of God's own sending;
* O sacred sleep! dear foretaste of that rest
* Which knows no ending;
* Sweet promise of that far-off Paradise
* Of calm release,
* Where weary ones may lean on Jesus' breast,
* And close their eyes,
* And be at peace.
* Earth "presses down;" the hearts that would ascend
* Droop, faint and weary;
* So distant seems the lifelong journey's end,
* The way so dreary;
* Each day's fierce struggle tires us out, as though
* We could no more,
* Then comes thine handmaid, Sleep, our griefs to tend.
* With balm for woe,
* And strength in store.
* We lay us down in peace, — thy touch divine
* Our eyelids closing;
* Darkness, — thy secret place, — becomes the shrine
* Of our reposing;
* Gently we breathe our souls into thy care,
* So glad to be
* One day mpre near to that home-rest of thine.
* Which we may share
* With saints and thee.
* So night by night we linger at thy feet,
* Until the morning;
* Glimpses of heaven, bright visions pure and sweet,
* Our dreams adorning;
* And if thy voice, kind Lord, we seem to hear,
* That word most blest
* For willing souls, with sympathy replete,
* Falls on our ear,
* "Sleep, — take your rest!"
* Sunday Magazine.Genevieve M. I. Irons.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1700

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.
| Fifth Series, Volume XVII. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | No. 1700. — January 13, 1877. | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | From Beginning Vol. CXXXII. |
CONTENTS. :
| I. | The Microscope and its Revelations, | London Quarterly Review, | 67 |
| II. | What She Came Through. By Sarah Tytler, author of "Lady Bell," etc., Part XXIV., | Good Words, | 81 |
| III. | Our Arctic Voyage. An Unscientific Account. By the Chaplain of the "Discovery", | Fraser's Magazine, | 94 |
| IV. | A Peasant Prometheus. Translated from the French of | Emile Souvestre, | 121 |
| V. | Poetry and Civilization, | Spectator, | 125 |
| VI. | Absence of White Color in Animals, | Chambers' Journal, | 128 |
POETRY. :
| Let it be, | 66 | Harvest, | 66 |
| Halidon Hill, | 66 | | |
| Miscellany, | Miscellany, | Miscellany, | 128 |
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1700/Ascetic Nature

As published in Issue 1700 of Littell's Living Age (January 13, 1877)
Ascetic Nature
Passion and song, and the adornèd hours Of floral loveliness, hopes grown most sweet,
And generous patience in the ripening heat,
A mother's bosom, a bride's face of flowers,
— Knows nature aught so fair? Witness, ye powers
Which rule the virgin heart of this retreat
To rarer issues, ye who render meet
Earth, purged and pure, for gracious heavenly dowers!
The luminous pale lake, the pearl-grey sky,
The wave that gravely murmurs meek desires,
The abashed yet lit expectance of the whole,
— These and their beauty speak of earthly fires
Long quenched, clear aims, deliberate sanctity, —
O'er the white forehead lo! the aureole.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1700/Cathedral Close

As published in Issue 1700 of Littell's Living Age (January 13, 1877)
(In the) Cathedral Close
* In the dean's porch a nest of clay
* With five small tenants may be seen,
* Five solemn faces, each as wise
* As though its owner were a dean;
* Five downy fledglings in a row,
* Packed close as in an antique pew
* The schoolgirls are whose foreheads clear
* At the Venite shine on you.
* Day after day the swallows sit
* With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound,
* But dreaming and digesting much,
* They grow thus wise and soft and round.
* They watch the canons come to dine,
* And hear the mullion-bars across,
* Over the fragrant fruit and wine,
* Deep talk about the reredos.
* Her hands with field-flowers drench'd, a child
* Leaps past in wind-blown dress and hair,
* The swallows turn their heads askew, —
* Five judges deem that she is fair.
* Prelusive touches sound within,
* Straightway they recognize the sign,
* And, blandly nodding, they approve
* The minuet of Rubenstein,
* They mark the cousins' schoolboy talk,
* (Male birds flown wide from minster bell),
* And blink at each broad term of art,
* Binomial or bicycle.
* Ah! downy young ones, soft and warm,
* Doth such a stillness mask from sight
* Such swiftness? can such peace conceal
* Passion and ecstasy of flight?
* Yet somewhere 'mid your Eastern suns,
* Under a white Greek architrave
* At morn, or when the shaft of fire
* Lies large upon the India wave,
* A sense of something dear gone by
* Will stir, strange longings thrill the heart
* For a small world embowered and close,
* Of which ye some time were a part.
* The dew-drench'd flowers, the child's glad eyes,
* Your joy unhuman shall control,
* And in your wings a light and wind
* Shall move from the maestro's soul.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1699/Seaweed

* SEAWEED.
* Alas, poor weed! The careless tide
* Has left thee with his lightest foam;
* And now a desert drear and wide
* Divides thee from thy wished-for home.
* His flow may bear thee back once more,
* But canst thou live thy life of yore?
* Alas, I, too, am left awhile
* By her I love, in lightest play!
* On distant loves I see her smile,
* I hear her laughter far away.
* Her heart may turn to me again,
* But can my heart forget the pain?
* Spectator. R. I. O.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1700/Absence of White Color in Animals

From Chambers' Journal.
ABSENCE OF WHITE COLOR IN ANIMALS.
Some very curious physiological facts bearing upon the presence or absence of white colors in the higher animals have lately been adduced by Dr. Ogle. It has been found that a colored or dark pigment in the olfactory region of the nostrils is essential to perfect smell, and this pigment is rarely deficient except when the whole animal is pure white. In these cases the creature is almost without smell or taste. This, Dr. Ogle believes, explains the curious case of the pigs in Virginia adduced by Mr. Darwin, white pigs being poisoned by a poisonous root which does not affect black pigs. Mr. Darwin imputed this to a constitutional difference accompanying the dark color which rendered what was poisonous to the white-colored animals quite innocuous to the black. Dr. Ogle however observes, that there is no proof that the black pigs eat the root, and he believes the more probable explanation to be that it is distasteful to them, while the white pigs, being deficient in smell and taste, eat it and are killed. Analogous facts occur in several distinct families. White sheep are killed in the Tarentino by eating Hypericin criscum, while black sheep escape; white rhinoceroses are said to perish from eating Euphorbia candelabrum; and white horses are said to suffer from poisonous food where colored ones escape. Now it is very improbable that a constitutional immunity from poisoning by so many distinct plants should in the case of such widely different animals be always correlated with the same difference of color; but the facts are readily understood if the senses of smell and taste are dependent on the presence of a pigment which is deficient in wholly white animals. The explanation has, however, been carried a step further, by experiments shewing that the absorption of odors by dead matter, such as clothing, is greatly affected by color, black being the most powerful absorbent, then blue, red, yellow, and lastly white. We have here a physical cause for the sense-inferiority of totally white animals which may account for their rarity in nature. For few, if any, wild animals are wholly white. The head, the face, or at least the muzzle or the nose, are generally black. The ears and eyes are also often black; and there is reason to believe that dark pigment is essential to good hearing, as it certainly is to perfect, vision. We can therefore understand why white cats with blue eyes are so often deaf — a peculiarity we notice more readily than their deficiency of smell or taste. — Dr. Wallace, British Association, 1876.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1699/After Life

* AFTER LIFE.
* Some drag their heaven down to earth
* Some raise it to the skies,
* Some think they share its holy mirth,
* Before the body dies.
* But what the time and what the place,
* This much at least is known,
* That we shall see Him face to face,
* And know as we are known.
* Some hope to "touch the vanished hand,"
* Complete the broken aim;
* Some but around the throne to stand,
* And magnify His name.
* I only know a silent space
* Between me and my own,
* Since they have met Him face to face,
* And know as they are known.
* Some fear to meet His dreadful eye,
* To hear His awful word;
* Some on his bosom long to lie,
* And pant to meet their Lord.
* I know, — how vast must be his grace,
* How pure must I have grown,
* Ere I can see him face to face,
* And know as I am known.
* Sunday Magazine. W. C. M.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 132/Issue 1699/Church Bells

* CHURCH BELLS.
* Ringing! ringing! ringing as they rang
* Long, long ago!
* With echoing peal and merry clang
* They come and go!
* The children have played and sung, and laughed and wept,
* And then grown old, and laid them down and slept;
* And still, as the hours onward flow,
* The bells are ringing for joy or woe!
* Singing! chiming! pealing! — such a song
* Of joy and mirth!
* Waking up echoes slumbering long
* Within the earth, —
* Telling their tale of love, and hope, and happy days, —
* From hill to valley the glad song they raise.
* And still, as the hours come and go,
* The bells are ringing for joy or woe!
* Swinging sadly, solemnly, a mournful tone,
* Telling of death!
* Of sorrowful hearts, that must wander alone
* On this weary earth;
* Of silent forms, and hands that lie at rest,
* Of voices forever hushed in a passionless breast;
* While the changing hours come and go,
* And the bells are ringing for joy or woe!
* Softly rising and falling, at eventide
* Ring out the bells,
* O'er the golden valleys far and wide
* Their music swells.
* And the children stop in their play, and stand to hear,
* And the aged look up with a quiet smile and a tear,
* As they think of the hours that come and go,
* While the bells are ringing for joy or woe!
* Ringing! ringing! ringing, in the still night,
* A joyful chime!
* While the land lies sleeping, robed in white,
* At Christmas time, —
* Telling, with fresh sweet tones, the glad old story,
* Bringing a faint, soft echo from the land of glory!
* While the changing hours come and go,
* And the bells are ringing for joy or woe!
* Ringing! ringing! ringing, o'er the city
* With its mighty throng!
* Soothing some hearts, all sad and weary,
* With their happy song.
* Rising above the sin and sorrow, want and care,
* Above the sounds of strife that fill the air;
* And still, as the hours come and go,
* The bells are ringing for joy or woe!
* Ringing! ringing! ringing! recalling fast
* Old days gone by;
* Unlocking the fair, green shadowy past
* To memory's eye.
* Telling of high resolve, — of longings noble, free,
* Of golden moments gone by unheedingly!
* Of the changing hours that come and go, —
* Of their ever ringing for joy or woe!
* Ringing! ringing! ringing! still ring on,
* O old church bells!
* With tender pathos to each living one.
* Your music tells
* That beauty, wealth, and joy must fade and die,
* That man must spend his days as for eternity,
* Where the changing hours will cease to flow,
* Where 'tis never ringing for joy or woe!
* Golden Hour. M.
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 150

To MRS. R. BUTLER.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Oct. 30, 1847.
I hope the hyacinths "Maria Edgeworth" and "Apollo," and all the blues, will not be destroyed in their journey to you. I spent an hour yesterday doing up dahlias for Rosa, who wrote to me from Dublin that she was heart-sick for flowers.
I advise and earnestly recommend you to read Grantley Manor. It does not, Mr. Butler, end ill, and from beginning to end it is good, and not stupidly good. It is not controversial either in dialogue or story, and in word and deed it does justice to both Churches, in the distribution of the qualities of the dramatis personae and the action of the story. It is beautifully written; pathetic, without the least exaggeration of feeling or affectation. The characters are well contrasted; some nobly high-minded, generous, and firm to principle, religious and moral without any cant; and there are no monsters of wickedness. I never read a more interesting story, new, and well developed.
Nov. 13.
Yesterday morning I received the enclosed note from that most conceited and not over well-bred Mons. de Lamartine. I desired my friend Madame Belloc to use her own discretion in repeating my criticisms on his Histoire des Girondins, but requested that she would convey to him the thanks and admiration of our family for the manner in which he has mentioned the Abbé Edgeworth, and our admiration of the beauty of the writing of that whole passage in the work. At the same time I regretted that he had omitted "Fils de St. Louis," and also that he has not mentioned the circumstance of the crowd opening and letting the Abbé pass in safety immediately from the scaffold after the execution. This it seems to me necessary to note, as part of the picture of the times: a few days afterwards a price was set upon his head, and hundreds were ready for the reward to pursue and give him up. I copied this from Sneyd's Memoir, and the anecdote of the Abbé, when asked at a dinner (Ministerial) in London whether he said the words "Fils de St. Louis," etc., and his answer that he could not recollect, his mind had been so taken up with the event. I think Lamartine, in his note to me, turns this unfairly; and I feel, and I am sure so will you and Mr. Butler, "What an egotist and what a puppy it is!" But ovation has turned his head.
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 19

To MISS LUCY EDGEWORTH.
GATCOMBE PARK, Nov. 12.
We are perfectly happy here; delightful house and place for walking, riding, driving. Fanny has a horse always at her command. I a phaeton and Mr. Ricardo to converse with. He is altogether one of the most agreeable persons, as well as the best informed and most clever, that I ever knew. My own pleasure is infinitely increased by seeing that Fanny and Harriet are so much liked and so very happy here.
In the evenings, in the intervals of good conversation, we have all sorts of merry plays. Why, when and where: our words were—Jack, Bar, Belle, Caste, Plum, the best.
We acted charades last night. Pillion excellent. Maria, Fanny, and Harriet, little dear, pretty Bertha, and Mr. Smith, the best hand and head at these diversions imaginable. First we entered swallowing pills with great choking: pill. Next on all-fours, roaring lions; Fanny and Harriet's roaring devouring lions much clapped. Next Bertha riding on Mr. Smith's back. Pillion.
Coxcomb.—Mr. Smith, Mr. Ricardo, Fanny, Harriet, and Maria crowing. Ditto, ditto, combing hair. Mr. Ricardo, solus strutting, a coxcomb, very droll.
Sinecure.—Not a good one.
Monkey.—Very good. Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Smith as monks, with coloured silk handkerchiefs, as cowls, a laughable solemn procession. Re-enter with keys. Mr. Ricardo as monkey.
Fortune-tellers.—The best: Fanny as Fortune; unluckily we forgot to blind her, and she had only my leather bag for her purse, but nevertheless, she made a beautiful graceful Fortune, and scattered her riches with an air that charmed the world. 2nd scene: Mr. Smith and Harriet tellers of the house—"the ayes have it." Fanny, Maria, and Harriet, fortune-tellers; much approved.
Love-sick.—Bertha, with a bow made by Mr. Smith in an instant, with a switch and red tape and a long feathered pen. Bertha was properly blind and made an irresistible Cupid; she entered and shot, and all the company fell: Love. 2nd: Harriet, Mr. Smith, and Maria, all very sick. 3rd: Fanny, a love-sick young lady. Maria, her duenna, scolding, and pitying, and nursing her with a smelling bottle.
Fire-eater.—1st: Harriet and I acted alarm of fire, and alarmed Mr. Ricardo so well—he was going to call for assistance, 2nd: I was an epicure, and eating always succeeds on the stage. 3rd: Harriet devoured lighted spills to admiration, and only burnt her lip a little.
In "conundrum," Mrs. Osman was a beautiful nun; she is a charming creature, most winning countenance and manner, very desirous to improve herself, and with an understanding the extent and excellence of which I did not at first estimate.
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 16

To MRS. RUXTON.
WYCOMBE ABBEY, Nov. 2, 1821.
It is impossible to be kinder than Lord Carrington is to us: he wrote to invite everybody that he thought we should like to meet. We have had Mr. Wilberforce for several days, and I cannot tell you how glad I am to have seen him again, and to have had an opportunity of hearing his delightful conversation, and of seeing the extent and variety of his abilities. He is not at all anxious to show himself off; he converses, he does not merely talk. His thoughts flow in such abundance, and from so many sources, that they often cross one another; and sometimes a reporter would be quite at a loss. As he literally seems to speak all his thoughts as they occur, he produces what strikes him on both sides of any question. This often puzzles his hearers, but to me it is a proof of candour and sincerity; and it is both amusing and instructive to see him thus balancing accounts aloud. He is very lively, and full of odd contortions: no matter. His indulgent, benevolent temper strikes me particularly: he makes no pretension to superior sanctity or strictness. He spoke with much respect and tenderness for my feelings, of my father, and of the Life.
We have had, besides, Mr. Manning and his son, very unaffected and agreeable; and Mr. Abel Smith, a nephew of Lord Carrington's; and Mr. Hales, an old bachelor diplomatist, who told me the name which the Abbé de Pradt gave to Buonaparte—Jupiter-Scapin. Does not this name contain a volume?
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 2

To MRS. EDGEWORTH.
PREGNY, Sept. 6, 1820.
The account of the loss of the three guides at Chamouni is, alas! too true: three perished by stepping into the new-fallen snow which covered the crevasses; one was Joseph Carrier, who was Harriet's guide. Mrs. Marcet has just told us that, at a breakfast given by M. Prevost to M. Arago, and many scientific and literary people, a few days after the accident, parties ran high on this as on all affairs: some said it was all M. Hamel's fault; some, that it was all the guides' own fault. One said he wished one of the English gentlemen who was of the party was present, for then they should know the truth. At this moment the servant announced a stranger, "Monsieur Rumford," the name sounded like as the man pronounced it, and they thought it was Count Rumford come to life. M. Prevost went out and returned with Mr. Dornford, one of the Englishmen who had been of Dr. Hamel's party, who came, he said, to beg permission to state the plain facts, as he heard they had been told to Dr. Hamel's disadvantage. He, Dr. Hamel, Mr. Henderson, and M. Lelleque, a French naturalist, set out: the guides had not dissuaded them from attempting to go up Mont Blanc—only advised them to wait till a threatening cloud had passed. When it was gone, they all set out in high spirits; the guides cutting holes in the snow for their feet. This it is supposed loosened the snow newly fallen, and a quantity poured down over their heads. Mr. Dornford had pushed on before the guides; he shook off the snow as it fell, and felt no apprehension: on the contrary, he laughed as he pawed it away, and was making his way on, when he heard a cry from his companions, and looking back he saw some of them struggling in the snow. He helped to extricate them, saw a point moving in the snow, went to it, and pulled out Marie Coutay, one of the guides: he was quite purple, but recovered in the air. Looked round—two guides were missing: looked for them in vain, but saw a deep ravine covered with fresh snow, into which they must have fallen.