OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Backblock Ballads and Later Verses/The Boon of Discontent

The Boon of Discontent
Once an anthropoidal ape,
 Hairy, savage, strange of shape,
On a day that was excessively B.C.,
 In a forest damp and dim,
 With his tail around a limb,
Hung head downward from a neolithic tree;
And appeared to be lost in gloomy introspection.
 In his dull, primeval style
 He considered quite a while— A comparatively thoughtful ape was he—
 Then he drummed upon his chest,
 And remarked: "I give it best!
Strike me lucky! This 'ere game's no good to me!
And I'm full up of the whole damn business!"
To the father of the tribe
 He proceeded to describe
How upon a change of living he was bent.
 Said that Tory anthropoid:
 "Son, such thoughts you should avoid;
They are obviously born of discontent.
And such revolutionary notions would rend the whole social fabric."
Since the Eocene.
 Till this Age of Biplanes,
Man has ever been
 Yearning toward the high planes.
And while the Tory lags behind in by-ways worn and narrow,
'Tis the discontented section that shoves on the old world's barrow.
 Once a naked troglodyte,
 On a bitter winter's night,
Sat and shivered in his cave the whole night through;
 For his scanty coat of hair
 In no manner could compare
With the matted clothes his late forefather grew.
(Meaning the meditative anthropoidal ape I mentioned previously.)
And the troglodyte remarked,
 As without a wild dog barked,
And a dinosaurus lumbered through the fog,
 "I am sick of nakedness,
 And I'd like, I must confess,
To be shielded in the clothing of a dog.
And hang me if I don't go after one in the morning!"
 He was met with scoffs and grins
 When he walked abroad in skins;
And the troglodyte Conservatives cried: "Shame!
 Thus to hide the healthy nude
 Is obscene, indecent, rude!"
But the malcontent felt warmer, all the same.
And so began the evolution of the split skirt and the hot sock.
From the Age of Stone,
 To these Days of Reason,
Man has keener grown
 In and out of season.
'Tis through being discontented that humanity progresses.
If you're satisfied with dog-skins you will ne'er have satin dresses.
Once upon a time, a slave
 Had an impulse to behave
In a most unprecedented sort of style.
 He threw down his tools, and cried
 That he wasn't satisfied,
And all slavery was barbarous and vile.
(They probably boiled him in oil; but that's merely incidental.)
 Once again, a man who rode
 In a coach disliked the mode
Of that locomotion. 'Twas too slow by far.
 He was filled with discontent;
 So he—or some other—went
And, in course of time, evolved the motor-car.
And, if you've ever had one scare seven devils out of you,  you'll know it for a very great invention.    So, observe, this discontent
 To mankind is wisely sent
That he may be urged along to conquer new things,
 They who were quite satisfied,
 Like the Dinosaurus, died,
While the discontented anthropoids still do things.
And continue to be discontented, of course; but that's all in the game.
From the Age of Apes,
 To this generation,
Mankind thus escapes
 Absolute stagnation.
Here's the only consolation my philosophy is giving:
Discontentment with existence is your sole excuse for living.
# Backblock Ballads and Later Verses/The Bore

The Bore
Ah, prithee, friend, if them hast aught  Of love and kind regard for me, Tell not yon bore the stories droll  That yesternight I told to thee.
Nor tell him stories of thine own,  Nor chestnut of antiquitee; Nor quip nor crank, nor anything  If thou hast aught of love for me.
For sense of humour hath he none,  No gift for telling tales hath he; Yet thinks himself, within his heart,  A wit of wondrous drolleree.
And in the golden summer-time  With ear a-cock he roameth free, Collecting quibble, quip, and crank;  And anecdotes collecteth he.
Then in the dreary winter nights  He sits him down 'neath my rooftree, And in a coarse, ungentle voice  He fires those stories back at me.
He hath no wit for telling tales,  He laughs where ne'er a point there be; But sits and murders honest yarns,  And claims them as his propertee.
And when he laughs I rock and roar,  And vow he'll be the death o' me. For, mark thou, friend, my martyrdom—  He is a creditor to me.
Ay, prithee, friend, if thou hast love  For goodly jests or care for me, Then tell him not the merry tale  That yesternight I told to thee.
# Backblock Ballads and Later Verses/The Bridge Across the Crick

The Bridge Across the Crick
Joseph Jones and Peter Dawking  Strove in an election fight;  And you'd think, to hear them talking,  Each upheld the people's right. Each declared he stood for Progress and against his country's foes When he sought their votes at Wombat, where the Muddy River flows.
 Peter Dawking, scorning party,  As an Independent ran;  Joseph Jones, loud, blatant, hearty,  Was a solid party man. But the electors up at Wombat vowed to him alone they'd stick Who would give his sacred promise for the "bridge across the crick."
Bland, unfaithful politicians  Long had said this bridge should be.  Some soared on to high positions.  Some sank to obscurity; Still the bridge had been denied it by its unrelenting foes— By the foes of patient Wombat, where the Muddy River flows.
 Up at Wombat Peter Dawking  Held a meeting in the hall,  And he'd spent an hour in talking  On the far-flung Empire's Call, When a local greybeard, rising, smote him with this verbal brick: "Are or are yeh not in favour of the bridge across the crick?"
 Peter just ignored the question,  Proudly patriotic man;  Understand a mean suggestion  Men like Peter never can, Or that free enlightened voters look on all Great Things as rot, While a Burning Local Question fires each local patriot.
Joseph Jones, serene and smiling,  Took all Wombat to his heart.  "Ah," he said, his "blood was b'iling"—  He declared it "made him smart" To reflect how they'd been swindled; and he cried in thrilling tones: "Gentlemen, your bridge is certain if you cast your votes for Jones!"
 Joseph Jones and Peter Dawking  Strove in an election fight,  And, when they had finished talking,  On the great election night They stood level in the voting, and the hope of friends and foes Hung upon the box from Wombat, where the Muddy River flows.
 Then the Wombat votes were counted;  Jones, two hundred; Dawking, three!  Joseph, proud and smiling, mounted  On a public balcony, And his friends were shrill with triumph, for that contest, shrewdly run, In the House gave Jones's Party a majority of one.
Jones's Party—note the sequel—  Rules that country of the Free,  And the fight, so nearly equal,  Swayed the whole land's destiny. And the Big Things of the Nation are delayed till Hope grows sick— Offered up as sacrifices to "the bridge across the crick."
 Dawking now is sadly fearing  For the crowd's intelligence.  Joseph, skilled in engineering,  Full of pomp and sly pretence, Still holds out the pleasing promise of that bridge whene'er he goes Up to Wombat, patient Wombat, where the Muddy River flows.
# Backblock Ballads and Later Verses/The Chase of Ages

The Chase of Ages
Light of my lives! Is the time not yet?
 Lo, I've brooded on a star
Through many a year, with the hope held dear
 That, in some future far,
I would know the joy of a love returned.
 Are my lives lived vainly, all,
Since that cosmic morn when life, new-born,
 First moved on this mundane ball?
Yea, I mind it yet, when first we met
 On a tertiary rock,
How the graceful charm of your rudiments
 Imparted love's first shock.
But I was a mere organic cell
 In that early Eocene,
While you were a prim, primordial germ,
 And the mother of protogene.
So I loved and died, and the ages sped
 Till the time of my second birth;
When I took my place in the cosmic race,
 And again came down to earth.
Once more we met. Ah, Love, not yet!  You were far above my state!
For how could I raise my mollusc gaze
 To a virtuous vertebrate?
Again we died, and again we slept,
 And again we came to be— I as an anthropoidal ape,
 And you as a chimpanzee.
You as a charming chimpanzee,
 With a high patrician air;
And I watched you waltz from tree to tree
 As I slunk in my lowly lair.
And yet again, in an age or so,
 We met, and I mind the sob
I sobbed when I found that I was—what?
 And you were a thingumbob.
You had sold your tail for a kind of soul,
 You had grown two thumbs beside;
And I knew again that my love was vain,
 So I went to the woods and died.
As a humble homunculus, later on,
 I crept to your cave at night,
And howled long, love-lorn howls in vain
 To my lady troglodyte.
And I grew insane at your cold disdain,
 And my howlings filled the place,
Till your father sought me out one night,
 And again I yearned in space.
Then, Light of my lives! Is the time not yet?
 Say, in what distant life— In what dim age that is still to come
 May I win and call you wife?
Still high above! My Love, my Love!
 Nay, how can I raise my eyes
To you, my Star of the Eocene,
 My ever elusive prize?
Lo, Time speeds on, the suns grow cold,
 And the earth infirm and hoar,
And, ages past, we are here at last—  Ay, both on the earth once more.
But, alas, Dear Heart, as far apart
 As e'er in this cosmic whirl;
For I'm but a lowly writer-man
 And you are a tea-room girl.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Behrens, James

Edition of 1900.
​BEHRENS, James, naturalist, b. in Lubeck, Germany, 30 June, 1824. He was graduated at the gymnasium of Lubeck in 1841, and in 1853 came to the United States. He settled in California, where he has since remained, and has become a recognized authority on entomology. Mr. Behrens has contributed papers to scientific journals, and is a member of many scientific societies in the United States and Europe.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Bell, Alexander Melville

Edition of 1900.
​BELL, Alexander Melville, educator, b. in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1 March, 1819. He was educated under the care of his father, Alexander Bell, the inventor of a method for removing impediments of speech. From 1843 till 1865 he lectured in Edinburgh at the university and at New college, and in the latter year was appointed lecturer at university college, London. He removed to Canada in 1870, and became instructor at Queen's college, Kingston. He is the inventor of “Visible Speech,” a method of instruction in orthoëpy, which has also been successfully used in teaching deaf-mutes to speak. He has published “Principles of Speech and Elocution” (Edinburgh, 1849); “Popular Stenography,” and other books on shorthand; “Visible Speech and Universal Alphabetics”; “Line Writing on the Basis of Visible Speech”; “Faults of Speakers” (Salem, Mass.); “The Standard Elocutionist”; and other works. In 1881 he removed to Washington, D. C. He now (1886) has in press, to be published in New York, “Essays and Postscripts on Elocution”; “Lectures on Phonetics”; and “English Line Writing.”
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Bellamy, Edward

Edition of 1900. Supplement.
BELLAMY, Edward, author, b. in Chicopee Falls, Mass., 26 March, 1850; d. there, 22 May, 1898. He was educated at Union college, but was not graduated. In 1871, after studying law, he was admitted to practice. For several years he was assistant editor of “The Union,” Springfield, Mass.; an editorial writer of the “New York Evening Post,” and with his brother Charles established the Springfield “Daily News.” He was a frequent contributor to the magazines. Failing health led him in time to seek the aid of the Colorado climate, but without substantial benefit. His principal works are “Six to One, a Nantucket Idyl” (New York, 1877); “Dr. Heidenhoff's Process” (1879); “Miss Ludington's Sister, a Romance of Immortality” (Boston, 1885); “Looking Backward, or 2000-1887” (1888); and “Equality,” a sequel to “Looking Backward” (1897). These last two works had a wide circulation, and the first was translated into Arabic, French, German, and Russian, awakening almost as much interest in the Old world as in the New.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Beissel, Johann Conrad

Edition of 1900.
​BEISSEL, Johann Conrad, German religionist, b. in Eberbach, in the Palatinate, in 1690; d. in Ephrata, Lancaster co., Pa., in 1768. After studying theology at Halle, he became a Dunker, was forced to leave his native country, and settled in Pennsylvania about 1720. While a member of the Dunker society at Mühlbach (Mill Creek), Pa., he published (1725) a tract to prove that the ​seventh day was the only true sabbath. This caused some division in the society, and Beissel retired to a hermitage on the banks of the Cocalico. His friends soon joined him, and in 1728 they founded the first community of Seventh-day Dunkers, or German Seventh-day Baptists. In 1783 Beissel established, at what is now the village of Ephrata, a monastic society, which at one time numbered nearly 300. The habit of the Capuchins was adopted by both sexes, and celibacy was considered a virtue, though not made obligatory. Each member adopted a new name, and Beissel was called Friedsam, to which the community afterward added the title of Gottrecht. He seems to have been sincerely devout, though whimsical, was an excellent musician, and composed and set to music several volumes of hymns in German and Latin (1766-'73). He also published a mystical dissertation on the fall of man, and a volume of letters. He left several curiously decorated manuscript volumes. Soon after the death of its founder, the society at Ephrata began to decline, and few of the original features are now to be found there. The principal settlement of the sect founded by Beissel is at Snowhill, Franklin co., Pa.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Bell, Alexander Graham

Edition of 1900.
​BELL, Alexander Graham, physicist, b. in Edinburgh, Scotland, 3 March, 1847. He is a son of Alexander Melville Bell, mentioned below, and was educated at the Edinburgh high school and Edinburgh university, receiving special training in his father's system for removing impediments in speech. He removed to London in 1867, and entered the university there, but left on account of his health, and went to Canada with his father in 1870. In 1872 he took up his residence in the United States, introducing with success his father's system of deaf-mute instruction, and became professor of vocal physiology in Boston university. He had been interested for many years in the transmission of sound by electricity, and had devised many forms of apparatus for the purpose, but the first public exhibition of his invention was at Philadelphia in 1876. Its complete success has made him wealthy. His invention of the “photophone,” in which a vibratory beam of light is substituted for a wire in conveying speech, has also attracted much attention, but has never been practically used. It was first described by him before the American association for the advancement of science in Boston, 27 Aug., 1880. After the shooting of President Garfield, Prof. Bell, together with Sumner Tainter, experimented with an improved form of Hughes's induction balance, and endeavored to find the exact location of the ball, but failed. Prof. Bell has put forth the theory that the present system of educating deaf-mutes is wrong, as it tends to restrict them to one another's society, so that marriages between the deaf are common, and therefore the number of deaf-mute children born is on the increase. His latest experiments relate to the recording of speech by means of photographing the vibrations of a jet of water. He is a member of various learned societies, and has published many scientific papers. He has lived for some time in Washington, D. C.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Becker, George Ferdinand

Edition of 1900.
​BECKER, George Ferdinand, geologist, b. in New York city, 5 Jan., 1847. He was graduated at Harvard in 1868, studied at Heidelberg, receiving the degree of Ph. D. in 1869, and, two years later, passed the final examination of the Royal School of Mines in Berlin. From 1875 till 1879 he was instructor of mining and metallurgy in the University of California, and in 1879 he became connected with the U. S. Geological Survey, and later was placed in charge of the California division of geology. In 1880 he was appointed special agent of the 10th census, and in 1882 was further appointed special agent in charge of the investigation of the precious-metal industries. His most important writings are “Geometrical Form of Volcanic Cones” (1885); “Notes on the Stratigraphy of California” (1885); “Cretaceous Metamorphic Rocks of California” (1886); “A Theorem of Maximum Dissipativity” (1886), which is a new fundamental law of mechanics, and one of its consequences is “A New Law of Thermo-Chemistry” (1886), which embraces the previously known laws of this science and makes an important addition to them. He has also written “Atomic-Weight Determinations; A Digest of the Investigations published since 1814” (Washington, 1880); “Geology of the Comstock Lode” (1882); “Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals,” with S. F. Emmons (1885); and “Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of the Pacific Slope” (1886).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Beckford, William

Edition of 1900.
​BECKFORD, William, West Indian planter, b. in Jamaica in December, 1709; d. in London, 21 June, 1770. After receiving his education in England, he fell heir to large plantations in the West Indies, and, entering public life, became a member of parliament and alderman of London, and in 1762, and again in 1768, was elected lord mayor of London. With John Wilkes, he led the popular opposition, and on 23 May, 1770, delivered a memorable remonstrance to the king, complaining of the falsification of election returns. He left estates worth £100,000 a year, and a million of money. His son was the author of “Vathek.”
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Becker, Thomas Albert

Edition of 1900. The 1891 edition notes that “His parents were German Protestants.”
​BECKER, Thomas Albert, R. C. bishop, b. in Pittsburg, Pa., 12 June, 1832; d. in Washington, Ga., 29 May, 1899. He studied at the Propaganda, Rome, and was ordained in 1859. On his return he went to Richmond, Va., and was afterward sent to Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs. At the close of the war he returned to Baltimore, and was for some time on duty at St. Peter's church. He was afterward appointed professor of theology, ecclesiastical history, and sacred scriptures in St. Mary's college, Emmettsburg, and was one of the chief secretaries of the plenary council assembled at Baltimore. He was then stationed at the cathedral of Richmond, where he remained until created bishop of the new diocese of Wilmington, Del., 23 Aug., 1868. He was transferred to the see of Savannah in May, 1886. Dr. Becker has contributed largely to reviews and periodicals, and his series of articles in the “American Catholic Quarterly,” on the idea of a true university, attracted wide attention.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Behaim, Martin

Edition of 1891.
​BEHAIM, or BEHEM, Martin, German geographer, b. in Nuremberg about 1459; d. in Lisbon, 29 July, 1506. When a boy he was much interested in astronomy and mathematics. He engaged in the manufacture of cloth in Flanders in 1477, and in 1480 the commercial relations between that country and Portugal, as well as his interest in the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese, led him to visit Lisbon. Here he became a pupil of Johann Müller (Regiomontanus), and a friend of Christopher Columbus, whose views in regard to a western passage to India he supported. He was one of a committee appointed in 1483 to construct an astrolabe and tables of declension, and for his services was made a knight in 1484. He was cosmographer on the expedition of Diego Cam, which sailed along the west coast of Africa to the mouth of the Congo. He established a Flemish colony at Fayal in 1486, married the governor's daughter, and remained there until 1490 when, returning to Nuremberg, he made a large terrestrial globe, on which historical notices were written. This globe is a valuable record of the geographical knowledge of his time. It is made of papier-maché, covered with gypsum, and over this a parchment surface receives the drawing. The Behaim family caused it to be repaired in 1825, and it is now in the city hall at Nuremberg. Behaim placed on his globe an island far to the west of Fayal, and this is thought by some to have been on the Brazilian coast, which would make Behaim, instead of Columbus, the discoverer of America. It is probable, however, that he simply represented the general impression that some such island existed. In 1493 Behaim returned to Portugal, and, being sent on a diplomatic mission to the Low Countries, was captured by English cruisers, and carried to England, but afterward escaped to the continent. See Von Murr's “Diplomatische Geschichte des Hitters M. Behaim” (1778), and Ghillany's “Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim” (1853).
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Holls, George Charles

Edition of 1892.
​HOLLS, George Charles, clergyman, b. in Darmstadt, Germany, 26 Feb., 1824; d. in Mount Vernon, N. Y., 12 Aug., 1886. He was educated at Darmstadt and at Strasburg, and at an early age he became assistant to Dr. Wichern, founder of the “Rauhe Haus,” near Hamburg. When he was twenty-five years of age he was placed in charge of the government charities in the province of Upper Silesia, and while holding this office organized the work of relief during the famine of 1848-'9 in that province, having at one time 4,000 destitute children under his charge. He resigned in 1851 and came to this country, where, after teaching for several years in Ohio, he was appointed superintendent of the Lutheran orphan farm-school at Zelienople, Pa. He remained there until 1866, when he took charge of the newly founded Wartburg farm-school near Mount Vernon, N. Y. In August, 1885, failing health compelled him to resign, and he afterward lived in retirement till his death.
# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Holm, John Campanius

Edition of 1892.
​HOLM, John Campanius, Swedish clergyman, b. in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1601; d. there, 17 Sept., 1683. He sailed with Gov. Printz from Gottenburg, 1 Nov., 1642, and arrived at Fort Christina, on the Delaware, 15 Feb., 1643, where he entered on his duties as chaplain to the Swedish colony, and continued to officiate in this capacity during six years. Prior to his coming he had been preceptor of the orphans' seminary in Stockholm. Under his ministry in the colony a church was erected at Tinicum, the seat of government, and was consecrated by him, 4 Sept., 1646. This was the first house of worship that was erected within the limits of Pennsylvania. He manifested a deep interest in the welfare of the Indians, and performed missionary work among them. They visited his house and came to hear him preach. To further his work he applied himself to learning their language, into which he here began the task of translating Luther's catechism. His labors in New Sweden ended in May, 1648, when he sailed for home in the ship “Swan,” arriving at Stockholm on 4 July following. On his return to Sweden he was made chaplain to the admiralty, and afterward rector at Upland, where he completed his translation of the catechism into the language of the Delawares, or Lenni-Lenape, which is probably the first translation of any work into an Indian language of this country. It was published in the Delaware and Swedish languages (Stockholm, 1696), together with a vocabulary, a copy of which is in the library of the American philosophical society. In the translation he accommodates the Lord's Prayer to the circumstances of the Indians by substituting for “daily bread” “a plentiful supply of venison and corn.” He was buried in the church of Frost Hults, where there is a monument to his memory. — His grandson, Thomas Campanius, published a history of New Sweden, known as “Campanius's,” which is largely made up, it is said, of data that were obtained from his grandfather, and partly, too, it is supposed, from information that was given verbally by him to the author.