No, jos sinulla on kärsimystä kuunnella

Minun huomioni kiintyi muutamaan ovilautaan, jolle oli maalattu kilvellä ja kypärillä varustettu nuori neito, jonka päällä keijui iso hämmähäkki seikissänsä. Kysymykseeni vastasi seuralaiseni, että löytyi taru miksi tämä taulu oli maalattu, joka aina oli syvästi vaikuttanut häneen; ja salaisella pöyristyksellä asui hän samassa huoneessa, jonne tämä ovi vei, ja jossa nuori Sesilia Boije, taulun alkukuva, muinoin oli asunut. Juuri sentähden oli tässä huoneessa hänestä jotakin viehättävää.

Minä pyysin häntä kertomaan minulle tämän tarun. "Hm," vastasi hän hymyillen, "se on liian pitkä. Se on minua niin miellyttänyt, että minä olen koonnut ja järjestänyt sen vähän, mitä siitä olen saanut tietää, ja pelkäänpä, etten taida sitä sinulle muutamin sanoin kertoa, juuri sen tähden, että minä olen sitä niin paljon mietiskellyt.

"Jota pitempi, sitä parempi," vastasin minä. "Ilta tulee kyllä pitkäksi, jos ei meillä muuta tehtävää ole, kuin turhia juoruella. Astukaamme tämän avoimen akkunan eteen, juuri tässä huoneessa, ja kerro sinä minulle kerrottavasi, siitä saamme hauskuutta kumpikin."

Fredrika Runeberg: Rouva Katariina Boije ja hänen tyttärensä (Arvo Lempirannan käännös)

Amusements in Mathematics

Tommy: "How old are you, mamma?"
Mamma: "Let me think, Tommy. Well, our three ages add up to exactly seventy years."
Tommy: "That's a lot, isn't it? And how old are you, papa?"
Papa: "Just six times as old as you, my son."
Tommy: "Shall I ever be half as old as you, papa?"
Papa: "Yes, Tommy; and when that happens our three ages will add up to exactly twice as much as to-day."
Tommy: "And supposing I was born before you, papa; and supposing mamma had forgot all about it, and hadn't been at home when I came; and supposing——"
Mamma: "Supposing, Tommy, we talk about bed. Come along, darling. You'll have a headache."
Now, if Tommy had been some years older he might have calculated the exact ages of his parents from the information they had given him. Can you find out the exact age of mamma?

Henry Ernest Dudeney:Amusements in Mathematics

Överklassens lögner.

Första artikeln: Religionen.

Vad är religion?

Ett på lägre utvecklingsstadier uppkommet behov, som av överklassen begagnats för att hålla underklassen under sig.

Överklassen skrattar hemligt åt religionen, men anser att »män måste ha en religion för folket». En uppriktig ateist har nyligen förklarat att det är synd att göra underklassen olycklig genom att beröva den dess religion.

Religionens djupa betydelse kan man finna därav att ateister uppträtt till nattvardsvidskepelsens försvar. Vidskepelsen är nyttig för överklassen.

August Strindbergs Lilla katekes för Underklassen

Customary for the ladies to dispense with bathing-dresses

I WAS strongly inclined to spend several weeks in Helsingfors. The bathing is delightful, and the manners and customs of the people are primitive and interesting. My adventure on the sea-shore, as I soon discovered, was nothing uncommon. I mentioned the matter to my landlady —a Finnish woman of very sociable manners, who spoke a little English. I asked her if it was customary for the ladies to dispense with bathing-dresses. She said they generally wore something when they bathed in public, but beyond the limits of the regular bath-houses, at the end of the Botanical Gardens, they seldom troubled themselves about matters of that kind; in fact, they preferred going in without any obstruction, because "they could swim so much better."

John Ross Browne: The land of Thor (1867)

Puun rungolla istui nuorukainen.

Puun rungolla istui nuorukainen.

Hän oli pitkä ja solakka kuin vastakaatamansa kuuset. Hattunsa keinuili kuusen lehvällä ja takkinsa ja liivinsä riippuivat kuivuneessa oksantyngässä. Valkoisen paidan avatusta aukeamasta paistoi ruskea, voimakas rinta ja kyynärpäihin saakka käärityt hihat paljastivat lujat, päivettyneet käsivarret.

Hän istui hiukan etukumarassa ja katseli oikeata käsivarttaan. Koukisti sitä ja ojensi taasen, tarkastellen kuinka lihakset paisuivat ja jänteet nahkan alla voimakkaasti jännittyivät.

Nuorukainen hymyili.

Hän tarttui vieressään olevan kirveen ponteen. Kohotti sen ilmaan suoralla käsivarrella, piti niin hetkisen ojona ja heilautti lopuksi pari kertaa leikiten ilmassa.

Nuorukainen hymyili uudelleen:

»Viisikolmatta niitä jo tuossa makaa, eikä kirves paina vielä vähääkään!»

Johannes Linnankoski: Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta

Kirot

Pakolaiset
Taistelu Heikkilän talosta

He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up

I Had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.

It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.

Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome

Two young women want washing.

Teeth extracted with great pains.
Babies taken and finished in ten minutes by a country photographer.
Wood and coal split.
Wanted, a female who has a knowledge of fitting boots of a good moral character.
For sale, a handsome piano, the property of a young lady who is leaving Scotland in a walnut case with turned legs.
A large Spanish blue gentleman's cloak lost in the neighborhood of the market.

English as She is Wrote. Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be made to Convey Ideas or obscure them.

Not quite so dismal as might be imagined

At twelve o'clock this night we saw the Sun in full beauty. The Horizon being remarkably clear, gave us a most delightful view of that, to us, extraordinary sight. Sir H. G. L. has caused an engraving to be made of this agreeable Scene. The Inhabitants of this climate no doubt reap many advantages from this circumstance during the Summer season ; but, alas ! a long and dreary Winter reverses the scene and involves them in continual darkness. Yet this is not quite so dismal as might be imagined. The aurora borealis appears with peculiar splendor in all northern countries and supplies in some degree the place of the Sun. The stars too in their clear frosty nights shed an agreeable light, and enable them without much impediment to follow many of their ordinary occupations.

Matthew Consett: A Tour Through Sweden, Swedish-Lapland, Finland and Denmark (1789)

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar--except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.

L. Frank Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

•

American Fairy Tales
Aunt Jane's Nieces
Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad
Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work
Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society
Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross
Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation
Aunt Jane's Nieces out West
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
The Emerald City of Oz
The Enchanted Island of Yew
Glinda of Oz
A Kidnapped Santa Claus
Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
Little Wizard Stories of Oz
The Lost Princess of Oz
The Magic of Oz
The Marvelous Land of Oz
Mary Louise
Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls
Mary Louise in the Country
Mary Louise Solves a Mystery
The Master Key, an Electrical Fairy Tale Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity
Mother Goose in Prose
Ozma of Oz
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
Rinkitink in Oz
The Road to Oz
The Scarecrow of Oz
The Sea Fairies
Sky Island: being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n Bill after their visit to the sea fairies
The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People
Tik-Tok of Oz
The Tin Woodman of Oz
The Woggle-Bug Book
•The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

They hunt the wild animals in various ways

Amusements are not rare among so cheerful a people, though they are not much given to dancing. They have many athletic sports, and the bear dance, from the strength required, may be considered one. It is practised sometimes by the peasants. It is performed on all fours, or the dancer rests on his hands as well as feet, and by leaps and jumps keeps time with the music. It is so fatiguing, that the dancer in a few minutes falls into a violent perspiration. 

Samuel Griswold Goodrich: 

Pictorial Geography of the World

 

Give most careful attention to your extremities

We have seen women with such slender ankles and shapely insteps, that white slippers or low shoes might be worn with black or coloured stockings. But it is playing safe to have your stockings match your slippers or shoes.

Buckles and bows on slippers and pumps can destroy the line of a shoe and hence a foot, or continue and accentuate line. There are fashions in buckles and bows, but unless you bend the fashion until it allows nature's work to appear at its best, it will destroy artistic intention.

Some people buy footwear as they buy fruit; they like what they see, so they get it! You know so many women, young and old, who do this, that our advice is, try to recall those who do not. Yes, now you see what we aim at; the women you have in mind always continue the line of their gowns with their feet. You can see with your mind's eye how the slender black satin slippers, one of which always protrudes from the black evening gown, carry to its eloquent finish the line from her head through torso, hip to knee, and knee down through instep to toe,—a line so frequently obstructed by senseless trimmings, lineless hats, and footwear wrong in colour and line.

If your gown is white and your object to create line, can you see how you defeat your purpose by wearing anything but white slippers or shoes?

Emily Burbank: Woman as Decoration (1917)

Yellow Finland

Yellow Finland.

This is a beautiful, medium-sized turnip, of a bright yellow throughout, even to the neck; somewhat similar to a firm Yellow Malta, but of finer color. The under part of the bulb is singularly depressed: from this depression issues a small, mousetail-like root. It is somewhat earlier, and also hardier, than the Yellow Malta.

The flesh is tender, close-grained, and of a sweet, sugary flavor; the leaves are small, and few in number; bulb about two inches in thickness by four inches in diameter, weighing eight or ten ounces. An excellent garden variety.

Fearing Burr: The Field and Garden Vegetables of America. Containing Full Descriptions of Nearly Eleven Hundred Species and Varietes; With Directions for Propagation, Culture and Use. (1863)