January 2011
13 posts
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Then I being left alone to the high cogitations of loue, hauing passed ouer a long and tedious night without sleepe, through my barren fortune, and aduerse constellation, altogether vncomforted and sorrowfull, by means of my vntimely and not prosperous loue, weeping, I recounted from point to point, what a thing vnequall loue is: and how fitly one may loue that dooth not loue: and what defence...
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I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.
- Anonymous, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) [full text]
Wikipedia: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
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Anonymous and Unknown
Apologies for the unplanned hiatus. The Project Gutenberg Project returns with a bang and perhaps the occasional whimper as we celebrate authors anonymous and/or unknown - some whose names are lost in the mists of time, others whose names were deliberately withheld due to the controversial nature of their works. Expect everything from the sublime to the profane; from the divine to the debauched.
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In one month a woman of ordinary intelligence, with the desire to learn, should be able to make perfectly, and serve attractively, enough simple dishes to supply the family table with sufficient variety, without troubling the mistress to plan and think for her.
- Mary Ronald, The Century Cook Book (1895) [full text]
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In one month a woman of ordinary intelligence, with the desire to learn, should be able to make perfectly, and serve attractively, enough simple dishes to supply the family table with sufficient variety, without troubling the mistress to plan and think for her.
- Mary Ronald, The Century Cook Book (1895) [full text]
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December 2010
107 posts
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“I’m so tired of Christmas I wish there never would be another one!” exclaimed a discontented-looking little girl.
- Louisa M. Alcott, ‘A Christmas Dream’ (1885) in The Louisa Alcott Reader [full text]
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Let no man deceive himself; if by vulgarity we mean coarseness of speech, rowdiness of behaviour, gossip, horseplay, and some heavy drinking, vulgarity there always was wherever there was joy, wherever there was faith in the gods. Wherever you have belief you will have hilarity, wherever you have hilarity you will have some dangers. And as creed and mythology produce this gross and vigorous life,...
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On Christmas
As I said before, everybody is prickly at Christmas time, especially one’s relations. And so, to make the season as festive as possible, we, in our sensible way, collect as many of these cheerful, sociable beings together as we can; and, in short, make a delightful family party. Holly? it is an insult to the tree to compare it in any way. No, I think the whole gathering resembles a hedgehog...
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Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning. No stockings hung at the fireplace, and for a moment she felt as much disappointed as she did long ago, when her little sock fell down because it was crammed so full of goodies.
- Louisa M. Alcott, Little Women (1868) [full text]
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On Christmas
As I said before, everybody is prickly at Christmas time, especially one’s relations. And so, to make the season as festive as possible, we, in our sensible way, collect as many of these cheerful, sociable beings together as we can; and, in short, make a delightful family party. Holly? it is an insult to the tree to compare it in any way. No, I think the whole gathering resembles a hedgehog...
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Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning. No stockings hung at the fireplace, and for a moment she felt as much disappointed as she did long ago, when her little sock fell down because it was crammed so full of goodies.
- Louisa M. Alcott, Little Women (1868) [full text]
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The presentation of gifts on Christmas day was an English custom of very great antiquity; so great that, in 1419, the practice had become much corrupted, and the abuse had to be sternly repressed.
- John Ashton, A Righte Merrie Christmasse!!! The Story of Christ-tide (1894) [full text]
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The presentation of gifts on Christmas day was an English custom of very great antiquity; so great that, in 1419, the practice had become much corrupted, and the abuse had to be sternly repressed.
- John Ashton, A Righte Merrie Christmasse!!! The Story of Christ-tide (1894) [full text]
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In the round of our rational and mournful year one festival remains out of all those ancient gaieties that once covered the whole earth. Christmas remains to remind us of those ages, whether Pagan or Christian, when the many acted poetry instead of the few writing it.
- G.K. Chesterton, ‘Christmas and the Aesthetes’ (1905) in Heretics [full text]
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In the round of our rational and mournful year one festival remains out of all those ancient gaieties that once covered the whole earth. Christmas remains to remind us of those ages, whether Pagan or Christian, when the many acted poetry instead of the few writing it.
- G.K. Chesterton, ‘Christmas and the Aesthetes’ (1905) in Heretics [full text]
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Let no man deceive himself; if by vulgarity we mean coarseness of speech, rowdiness of behaviour, gossip, horseplay, and some heavy drinking, vulgarity there always was wherever there was joy, wherever there was faith in the gods. Wherever you have belief you will have hilarity, wherever you have hilarity you will have some dangers. And as creed and mythology produce this gross and vigorous life,...
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“I’m so tired of Christmas I wish there never would be another one!” exclaimed a discontented-looking little girl.
- Louisa M. Alcott, ‘A Christmas Dream’ (1885) in The Louisa Alcott Reader [full text]
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BITCH. A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore, as may he gathered from the regular Billinsgate or St. Giles’s answer—“I may be a whore, but can’t be a bitch.”
- Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket...
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The quiet life lived by the Brontës in the vicarage on the edge of the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire seems prosaic to the casual observer, but it had many weird elements of romanticism. The purple moors stretching away behind the grey stone vicarage, the grey sky, and the sun always half-frowning, and never sporting with nature here as it does over the mountains in...
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The Ethel of this story is a fascinating creature who would have a good time wherever there were a few males, but no longer could she voyage through life quite so jollily without attracting the attention of the censorious. Chaperon seems to be one of the very few good words of which our authoress had never heard.
- J.M. Barrie, Preface to The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford (age 9) (1919) [full...
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Thus, my gentleman, not knowing what to do with his hands, was compelled to spend the evening stroking his whiskers. His whiskers were really fine, but he stroked them so assiduously that one got the feeling that the whiskers had come into the world first and afterwards the man in order to stroke them.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, ‘The Christmas Tree and the Wedding’ (1848) in Best Russian...
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Thus, my gentleman, not knowing what to do with his hands, was compelled to spend the evening stroking his whiskers. His whiskers were really fine, but he stroked them so assiduously that one got the feeling that the whiskers had come into the world first and afterwards the man in order to stroke them.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, ‘The Christmas Tree and the Wedding’ (1848) in Best Russian...
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BOW-WOW. The childish name for a dog; also a jeering appellation for a man born at Boston in America.
- Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket Eloquence (1811) [full text]
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Mary Shelley had inherited from her mother the world’s frown.
- Clara H. Whitmore, Women’s Work in English Fiction (1909) [full text]
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BITCH BOOBY. A country wench. Military term.
- Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket Eloquence (1811) [full text]
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ARS MUSICA. A bum fiddle.
- Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket Eloquence (1811) [full text]
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I say said Mr Salteena excitedly I have had some tea in bed.
- Daisy Ashford (age 9), The Young Visiters (1919) [full text]
Thanks to Katie Coyle for this wonderful find.
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Last week on the Project Gutenberg Project
Forster on vulgarity
and a Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
two original manuscripts
Portuguese architecture and Alaskan shores
tenements and prisons
a history of English female writers
a child prodigy
a princess
and the horror! The horror!
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ARRAH NOW. An unmeaning expletive, frequently used by the vulgar Irish.
- Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket Eloquence (1811) [full text]
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Last week on the Project Gutenberg Project
Forster on vulgarity
and a Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
two original manuscripts
Portuguese architecture and Alaskan shores
tenements and prisons
a history of English female writers
a child prodigy
a princess
and the horror! The horror!
5 tags
The Ethel of this story is a fascinating creature who would have a good time wherever there were a few males, but no longer could she voyage through life quite so jollily without attracting the attention of the censorious. Chaperon seems to be one of the very few good words of which our authoress had never heard.
- J.M. Barrie, Preface to The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford (age 9) (1919) [full...
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