16 | The below text is taken from Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud
17 |
18 |
19 | Sample Text
20 | 21 |
22 | Bonaparte has been as profuse in his disposal of the Imperial
23 | diadem of Germany, as in his promises of the papal tiara of Rome. The
24 | Houses of Austria and Brandenburgh, the Electors of Bavaria and Baden,
25 | have by turns been cajoled into a belief of his exclusive support towards
26 | obtaining it at the first vacancy. Those, however, who have paid
27 | attention to his machinations, and studied his actions; who remember his
28 | pedantic affectation of being considered a modern, or rather a second
29 | Charlemagne; and who have traced his steps through the labyrinth of folly
30 | and wickedness, of meanness and greatness, of art, corruption, and
31 | policy, which have seated him on the present throne, can entertain little
32 | doubt but that he is seriously bent on seizing and adding the sceptre of
33 | Germany to the crowns of France and Italy.
34 |
35 | During his stay last autumn at Mentz, all those German Electors who had
36 | spirit and dignity enough to refuse to attend on him there in person were
37 | obliged to send Extraordinary Ambassadors to wait on him, and to
38 | compliment him on their part. Though hardly one corner of the veil that
39 | covered the intrigues going forward there is yet lifted up, enough is
40 | already seen to warn Europe and alarm the world. The secret treaties he
41 | concluded there with most of the petty Princes of Germany, against the
42 | Chief of the German Empire which not only entirely detached them from
43 | their country and its legitimate Sovereign, but made their individual
44 | interests hostile and totally opposite to that of the German
45 | Commonwealth, transforming them also from independent Princes into
46 | vassals of France, both directly increased has already gigantic power,
47 | and indirectly encouraged him to extend it beyond what his most sanguine
48 | expectation had induced him to hope. I do not make this assertion from a
49 | mere supposition in consequence of ulterior occurrences. At a supper
50 | with Madame Talleyrand last March, I heard her husband, in a gay,
51 | unguarded, or perhaps premeditated moment, say, when mentioning his
52 | proposed journey to Italy:
53 |
54 | "I prepared myself to pass the Alps last October at Mentz. The first
55 | ground-stone of the throne of Italy was, strange as it may seem, laid on
56 | the banks of the Rhine: with such an extensive foundation, it must be
57 | difficult to shake, and impossible to overturn it."
58 |
59 | We were, in the whole, twenty-five persons at table when he spoke thus,
60 | many of whom, he well knew, were intimately acquainted both with the
61 | Austrian and Prussian Ambassadors, who by the bye, both on the next day
62 | sent couriers to their respective Courts.
63 |
64 | The French Revolution is neither seen in Germany in that dangerous light
65 | which might naturally be expected from the sufferings in which it has
66 | involved both Princes and subjects, nor are its future effects dreaded
67 | from its past enormities. The cause of this impolitic and anti-patriotic
68 | apathy is to be looked for in the palaces of Sovereigns, and not in the
69 | dwellings of their people. There exists hardly a single German Prince
70 | whose Ministers, courtiers and counsellors are not numbered, and have
71 | long been notorious among the anti-social conspirators, the Illuminati:
72 | most of them are knaves of abilities, who have usurped the easy direction
73 | of ignorance, or forced themselves as guides on weakness or folly, which
74 | bow to their charlatanism as if it was sublimity, and hail their
75 | sophistry and imposture as inspiration.
76 |
77 | Among Princes thus encompassed, the Elector of Bavaria must be allowed
78 | the first place. A younger brother of a younger branch, and a colonel in
79 | the service of Louis XVI., he neither acquired by education, nor
80 | inherited from nature, any talent to reign, nor possessed any one quality
81 | that fitted him for a higher situation than the head of a regiment or a
82 | lady's drawing-room. He made himself justly suspected of a moral
83 | corruption, as well as of a natural incapacity, when he announced his
84 | approbation of the Revolution against his benefactor, the late King of
85 | France, who, besides a regiment, had also given him a yearly pension of
86 | one hundred thousand livres. Immediately after his unexpected accession
87 | to the Electorate of Bavaria, he concluded a subsidiary treaty with your
88 | country, and his troops were ordered to combat rebellion, under the
89 | standard of Austrian loyalty. For some months it was believed that the
90 | Elector wished by his conduct to obliterate the memory of the errors,
91 | vices, and principles of the Duc de Deux-Ponts (his former title). But
92 | placing all his confidence in a political adventurer and revolutionary
93 | fanatic, Montgelas, without either consistency or firmness, without being
94 | either bent upon information or anxious about popularity, he threw the
95 | whole burden of State on the shoulders of this dangerous man, who soon
96 | showed the world that his master, by his first treaties, intended only to
97 | pocket your money without serving your cause or interest.
98 |
99 | This Montgelas is, on account of his cunning and long standing among
100 | them, worshipped by the gang of German Illuminati as an idol rather than
101 | revered as an apostle. He is their Baal, before whom they hope to oblige
102 | all nations upon earth to prostrate themselves as soon as infidelity has
103 | entirely banished Christianity; for the Illuminati do not expect to reign
104 | till the last Christian is buried under the rubbish of the last altar of
105 | Christ. It is not the fault of Montgelas if such an event has not
106 | already occurred in the Electorate of Bavaria.
107 |
108 | Within six months after the Treaty of Lundville, Montgelas began in that
109 | country his political and religious innovations. The nobility and the
110 | clergy were equally attacked; the privileges of the former were invaded,
111 | and the property of the latter confiscated; and had not his zeal carried
112 | him too far, so as to alarm our new nobles, our new men of property, and
113 | new Christians, it is very probable that atheism would have already,
114 | without opposition, reared its head in the midst of Germany, and
115 | proclaimed there the rights of man, and the code of liberty and equality.
116 |
117 | The inhabitants of Bavaria are, as you know, all Roman Catholics, and the
118 | most superstitious and ignorant Catholics of Germany. The step is but
119 | short from superstition to infidelity; and ignorance has furnished in
120 | France more sectaries of atheism than perversity. The Illuminati,
121 | brothers and friends of Montgelas, have not been idle in that country.
122 | Their writings have perverted those who had no opportunity to hear their
123 | speeches, or to witness their example; and I am assured by Count von
124 | Beust, who travelled in Bavaria last year, that their progress among the
125 | lower classes is astonishing, considering the short period these
126 | emissaries have laboured. To any one looking on the map of the
127 | Continent, and acquainted with the spirit of our times, this impious
128 | focus of illumination must be ominous.
129 |
130 | Among the members of the foreign diplomatic corps, there exists not the
131 | least doubt but that this Montgelas, as well as Bonaparte's Minister at
132 | Munich, Otto, was acquainted with the treacherous part Mehde de la Touche
133 | played against your Minister, Drake; and that it was planned between him
134 | and Talleyrand as the surest means to break off all political connections
135 | between your country and Bavaria. Mr. Drake was personally liked by the
136 | Elector, and was not inattentive either to the plans and views of
137 | Montgelas or to the intrigues of Otto. They were, therefore, both doubly
138 | interested to remove such a troublesome witness.
139 |
140 | M. de Montgelas is now a grand officer of Bonaparte's Legion of Honour,
141 | and he is one of the few foreigners nominated the most worthy of such a
142 | distinction. In France he would have been an acquisition either to the
143 | factions of a Murat, of a Brissot, or of a Robespierre; and the Goddess
144 | of Reason, as well as the God of the Theophilanthropists, might have been
145 | sure of counting him among their adorers. At the clubs of the Jacobins
146 | or Cordeliers, in the fraternal societies, or in a revolutionary
147 | tribunal; in the Committee of Public Safety, or in the council chamber of
148 | the Directory, he would equally have made himself notorious and been
149 | equally in his place. A stoic sans-culotte under Du Clots, a stanch
150 | republican under Robespierre, he would now have been the most pliant and
151 | brilliant courtier of Bonaparte.
152 |
153 |
154 | Tagged Sample Text
155 | 156 | 157 | 171 | 172 | 173 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /img/views.svg: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /texts/hanselgretel.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he groaned and said to his wife, what is to become of us. How are we to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for ourselves. I'll tell you what, husband, answered the woman, early to-morrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where it is the thickest. There we will light a fire for them, and give each of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of them. No, wife, said the man, I will not do that. How can I bear to leave my children alone in the forest. The wild animals would soon come and tear them to pieces. O' you fool, said she, then we must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our coffins, and she left him no peace until he consented. But I feel very sorry for the poor children, all the same, said the man. 2 | 3 | The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and had heard what their step-mother had said to their father. Gretel wept bitter tears, and said to Hansel, now all is over with us. Be quiet, Gretel, said Hansel, do not distress yourself, I will soon find a way to help us. And when the old folks had fallen asleep, he got up, put on his little coat, opened the door below, and crept outside. The moon shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house glittered like real silver pennies. Hansel stooped and stuffed the little pocket of his coat with as many as he could get in. Then he went back and said to Gretel, be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in peace, God will not forsake us, and he lay down again in his bed. When day dawned, but before the sun had risen, the woman came and awoke the two children, saying get up, you sluggards. We are going into the forest to fetch wood. She gave each a little piece of bread, and said, there is something for your dinner, but do not eat it up before then, for you will get nothing else. Gretel took the bread under her apron, as Hansel had the pebbles in his pocket. Then they all set out together on the way to the forest. When they had walked a short time, Hansel stood still and peeped back at the house, and did so again and again. His father said, Hansel, what are you looking at there and staying behind for. Pay attention, and do not forget how to use your legs. Ah, father, said Hansel, I am looking at my little white cat, which is sitting up on the roof, and wants to say good-bye to me. The wife said, fool, that is not your little cat, that is the morning sun which is shining on the chimneys. Hansel, however, had not been looking back at the cat, but had been constantly throwing one of the white pebble-stones out of his pocket on the road. 4 | 5 | When they had reached the middle of the forest, the father said, now, children, pile up some wood, and I will light a fire that you may not be cold. Hansel and Gretel gathered brushwood together, as high as a little hill. The brushwood was lighted, and when the flames were burning very high, the woman said, now, children, lay yourselves down by the fire and rest, we will go into the forest and cut some wood. When we have done, we will come back and fetch you away. 6 | 7 | Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire, and when noon came, each ate a little piece of bread, and as they heard the strokes of the wood-axe they believed that their father was near. It was not the axe, however, but a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was blowing backwards and forwards. And as they had been sitting such a long time, their eyes closed with fatigue, and they fell fast asleep. When at last they awoke, it was already dark night. Gretel began to cry and said, how are we to get out of the forest now. But Hansel comforted her and said, just wait a little, until the moon has risen, and then we will soon find the way. And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like newly-coined silver pieces, and showed them the way. 8 | 9 | They walked the whole night long, and by break of day came once more to their father's house. They knocked at the door, and when the woman opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said, you naughty children, why have you slept so long in the forest. We thought you were never coming back at all. The father, however, rejoiced, for it had cut him to the heart to leave them behind alone. 10 | 11 | Not long afterwards, there was once more great dearth throughout the land, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their father, everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the wood, so that they will not find their way out again. There is no other means of saving ourselves. The man's heart was heavy, and he thought, it would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your children. The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to say, but scolded and reproached him. He who says a must say b, likewise, and as he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time also. 12 | 13 | The children, however, were still awake and had heard the conversation. When the old folks were asleep, Hansel again got up, and wanted to go out and pick up pebbles as he had done before, but the woman had locked the door, and Hansel could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted his little sister, and said, do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly, the good God will help us. Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still smaller than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel crumbled his in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. Hansel, why do you stop and look round. Said the father, go on. I am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and wants to say good-bye to me, answered Hansel. Fool. Said the woman, that is not your little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining on the chimney. Hansel, however, little by little, threw all the crumbs on the path. The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had never in their lives been before. Then a great fire was again made, and the mother said, just sit there, you children, and when you are tired you may sleep a little. We are going into the forest to cut wood, and in the evening when we are done, we will come and fetch you away. When it was noon, Gretel shared her piece of bread with Hansel, who had scattered his by the way. Then they fell asleep and evening passed, but no one came to the poor children. They did not awake until it was dark night, and Hansel comforted his little sister and said, just wait, Gretel, until the moon rises, and then we shall see the crumbs of bread which I have strewn about, they will show us our way home again. When the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked them all up. Hansel said to Gretel, we shall soon find the way, but they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day too from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest, and were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but two or three berries, which grew on the ground. And as they were so weary that their legs would carry them no longer, they lay down beneath a tree and fell asleep. 14 | 15 | It was now three mornings since they had left their father's house. They began to walk again, but they always came deeper into the forest, and if help did not come soon, they must die of hunger and weariness. When it was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough, which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And when its song was over, it spread its wings and flew away before them, and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of which it alighted. And when they approached the little house they saw that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows were of clear sugar. We will set to work on that, said Hansel, and have a good meal. I will eat a bit of the roof, and you Gretel, can eat some of the window, it will taste sweet. Hansel reached up above, and broke off a little of the roof to try how it tasted, and Gretel leant against the window and nibbled at the panes. Then a soft voice cried from the parlor - nibble, nibble, gnaw who is nibbling at my little house. The children answered - the wind, the wind, the heaven-born wind, and went on eating without disturbing themselves. Hansel, who liked the taste of the roof, tore down a great piece of it, and Gretel pushed out the whole of one round window-pane, sat down, and enjoyed herself with it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were so terribly frightened that they let fall what they had in their hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said, oh, you dear children, who has brought you here. Do come in, and stay with me. No harm shall happen to you. She took them both by the hand, and led them into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two pretty little beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down in them, and thought they were in heaven. 16 | 17 | The old woman had only pretended to be so kind. She was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighborhood, she laughed with malice, and said mockingly, I have them, they shall not escape me again. Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks, she muttered to herself, that will be a dainty mouthful. 18 | 19 | Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried, get up, lazy thing, fetch some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him. Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was forced to do what the wicked witch commanded. And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and cried, Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon be fat. Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was Hansel's finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still remained thin, she was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. Now, then, Gretel, she cried to the girl, stir yourself, and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, to-morrow I will kill him, and cook him. Ah, how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down her cheeks. Dear God, do help us, she cried. If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should at any rate have died together. Just keep your noise to yourself, said the old woman, it won't help you at all. 20 | 21 | Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with the water, and light the fire. We will bake first, said the old woman, I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough. She pushed poor Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. Creep in, said the witch, and see if it properly heated, so that we can put the bread in. And once Gretel was inside, she intended to shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too. But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said, I do not know how I am to do it. How do I get in. Silly goose, said the old woman, the door is big enough. Just look, I can get in myself, and she crept up and thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh. Then she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away, and the godless witch was miserably burnt to death. Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable, and cried, Hansel, we are saved. The old witch is dead. Then Hansel sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did rejoice and embrace each other, and dance about and kiss each other. And as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch's house, and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels. These are far better than pebbles. Said Hansel, and thrust into his pockets whatever could be got in, and Gretel said, I, too, will take something home with me, and filled her pinafore full. But now we must be off, said Hansel, that we may get out of the witch's forest. 22 | 23 | When they had walked for two hours, they came to a great stretch of water. We cannot cross, said Hansel, I see no foot-plank, and no bridge. And there is also no ferry, answered Gretel, but a white duck is swimming there. If I ask her, she will help us over. Then she cried - little duck, little duck, dost thou see, Hansel and Gretel are waiting for thee. There's never a plank, or bridge in sight, take us across on thy back so white. The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told his sister to sit by him. No, replied Gretel, that will be too heavy for the little duck. She shall take us across, one after the other. The good little duck did so, and when they were once safely across and had walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar to them, and at length they saw from afar their father's house. Then they began to run, rushed into the parlor, and threw themselves round their father's neck. The man had not known one happy hour since he had left the children in the forest. The woman, however, was dead. Gretel emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together in perfect happiness. My tale is done, there runs a mouse, whosoever catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /texts/borges.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | By this art you may contemplate the variations of the 23 letters... 2 | The Anatomy of Melancholy, part 2, sect. II, mem. IV 3 | 4 | The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two; their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of a normal bookcase. One of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all the rest. To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other, satisfy one's fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote distances. In the hallway there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates all appearances. Men usually infer from this mirror that the Library is not infinite (if it were, why this illusory duplication?); I prefer to dream that its polished surfaces represent and promise the infinite ... Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear the name of lamps. There are two, transversally placed, in each hexagon. The light they emit is insufficient, incessant. 5 | Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite. I say that the Library is unending. The idealists argue that the hexagonal rooms are a necessary form of absolute space or, at least, of our intuition of space. They reason that a triangular or pentagonal room is inconceivable. (The mystics claim that their ecstasy reveals to them a circular chamber containing a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure. This cyclical book is God.) Let it suffice now for me to repeat the classic dictum: The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible. 6 | There are five shelves for each of the hexagon's walls; each shelf contains thirty-five books of uniform format; each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line, of some eighty letters which are black in color. There are also letters on the spine of each book; these letters do not indicate or prefigure what the pages will say. I know that this incoherence at one time seemed mysterious. Before summarizing the solution (whose discovery, in spite of its tragic projections, is perhaps the capital fact in history) I wish to recall a few axioms. 7 | First: The Library exists ab aeterno. This truth, whose immediate corollary is the future eternity of the world, cannot be placed in doubt by any reasonable mind. Man, the imperfect librarian, may be the product of chance or of malevolent demiurgi; the universe, with its elegant endowment of shelves, of enigmatical volumes, of inexhaustible stairways for the traveler and latrines for the seated librarian, can only be the work of a god. To perceive the distance between the divine and the human, it is enough to compare these crude wavering symbols which my fallible hand scrawls on the cover of a book, with the organic letters inside: punctual, delicate, perfectly black, inimitably symmetrical. 8 | Second: The orthographical symbols are twenty-five in number. (1) This finding made it possible, three hundred years ago, to formulate a general theory of the Library and solve satisfactorily the problem which no conjecture had deciphered: the formless and chaotic nature of almost all the books. One which my father saw in a hexagon on circuit fifteen ninety-four was made up of the letters MCV, perversely repeated from the first line to the last. Another (very much consulted in this area) is a mere labyrinth of letters, but the next-to-last page says Oh time thy pyramids. This much is already known: for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences. (I know of an uncouth region whose librarians repudiate the vain and superstitious custom of finding a meaning in books and equate it with that of finding a meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's palm ... They admit that the inventors of this writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but maintain that this application is accidental and that the books signify nothing in themselves. This dictum, we shall see, is not entirely fallacious.) 9 | For a long time it was believed that these impenetrable books corresponded to past or remote languages. It is true that the most ancient men, the first librarians, used a language quite different from the one we now speak; it is true that a few miles to the right the tongue is dialectical and that ninety floors farther up, it is incomprehensible. All this, I repeat, is true, but four hundred and ten pages of inalterable MCV's cannot correspond to any language, no matter how dialectical or rudimentary it may be. Some insinuated that each letter could influence the following one and that the value of MCV in the third line of page 71 was not the one the same series may have in another position on another page, but this vague thesis did not prevail. Others thought of cryptographs; generally, this conjecture has been accepted, though not in the sense in which it was formulated by its originators. 10 | Five hundred years ago, the chief of an upper hexagon (2) came upon a book as confusing as the others, but which had nearly two pages of homogeneous lines. He showed his find to a wandering decoder who told him the lines were written in Portuguese; others said they were Yiddish. Within a century, the language was established: a Samoyedic Lithuanian dialect of Guarani, with classical Arabian inflections. The content was also deciphered: some notions of combinative analysis, illustrated with examples of variations with unlimited repetition. These examples made it possible for a librarian of genius to discover the fundamental law of the Library. This thinker observed that all the books, no matter how diverse they might be, are made up of the same elements: the space, the period, the comma, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet. He also alleged a fact which travelers have confirmed: In the vast Library there are no two identical books. From these two incontrovertible premises he deduced that the Library is total and that its shelves register all the possible combinations of the twenty-odd orthographical symbols (a number which, though extremely vast, is not infinite): Everything: the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies, the faithful catalogues of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books. 11 | When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future. Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways, urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication. These pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors, proferred dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive books into the air shafts, met their death cast down in a similar fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad ... The Vindications exist (I have seen two which refer to persons of the future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers did not remember that the possibility of a man's finding his Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as zero. 12 | At that time it was also hoped that a clarification of humanity's basic mysteries -- the origin of the Library and of time -- might be found. It is verisimilar that these grave mysteries could be explained in words: if the language of philosophers is not sufficient, the multiform Library will have produced the unprecedented language required, with its vocabularies and grammars. For four centuries now men have exhausted the hexagons ... There are official searchers, inquisitors. I have seen them in the performance of their function: they always arrive extremely tired from their journeys; they speak of a broken stairway which almost killed them; they talk with the librarian of galleries and stairs; sometimes they pick up the nearest volume and leaf through it, looking for infamous words. Obviously, no one expects to discover anything. 13 | As was natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive depression. The certitude that some shelf in some hexagon held precious books and that these precious books were inaccessible, seemed almost intolerable. A blasphemous sect suggested that the searches should cease and that all men should juggle letters and symbols until they constructed, by an improbable gift of chance, these canonical books. The authorities were obliged to issue severe orders. The sect disappeared, but in my childhood I have seen old men who, for long periods of time, would hide in the latrines with some metal disks in a forbidden dice cup and feebly mimic the divine disorder. 14 | Others, inversely, believed that it was fundamental to eliminate useless works. They invaded the hexagons, showed credentials which were not always false, leafed through a volume with displeasure and condemned whole shelves: their hygienic, ascetic furor caused the senseless perdition of millions of books. Their name is execrated, but those who deplore the "treasures" destroyed by this frenzy neglect two notable facts. One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction of human origin is infinitesimal. The other: every copy is unique, irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles: works which differ only in a letter or a comma. Counter to general opinion, I venture to suppose that the consequences of the Purifiers' depredations have been exaggerated by the horror these fanatics produced. They were urged on by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and magical. 15 | We also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of the Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god. In the language of this zone vestiges of this remote functionary's cult still persist. Many wandered in search of Him. For a century they have exhausted in vain the most varied areas. How could one locate the venerated and secret hexagon which housed Him? Someone proposed a regressive method: To locate book A, consult first book B which indicates A's position; to locate book B, consult first a book C, and so on to infinity ... In adventures such as these, I have squandered and wasted my years. It does not seem unlikely to me that there is a total book on some shelf of the universe; (3) I pray to the unknown gods that a man -- just one, even though it were thousands of years ago! -- may have examined and read it. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified. The impious maintain that nonsense is normal in the Library and that the reasonable (and even humble and pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception. They speak (I know) of the "feverish Library whose chance volumes are constantly in danger of changing into others and affirm, negate and confuse everything like a delirious divinity." These words, which not only denounce the disorder but exemplify it as well, notoriously prove their authors' abominable taste and desperate ignorance. In truth, the Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical symbols, but not a single example of absolute nonsense. It is useless to observe that the best volume of the many hexagons under my administration is entitled The Combed Thunderclap and another The Plaster Cramp and another Axaxaxas mlö. These phrases, at first glance incoherent, can no doubt be justified in a cryptographical or allegorical manner; such a justification is verbal and, ex hypothesi, already figures in the Library. I cannot combine some characters 16 | 17 | dhcmrlchtdj 18 | 19 | which the divine Library has not foreseen and which in one of its secret tongues do not contain a terrible meaning. No one can articulate a syllable which is not filled with tenderness and fear, which is not, in one of these languages, the powerful name of a god. To speak is to fall into tautology. This wordy and useless epistle already exists in one of the thirty volumes of the five shelves of one of the innumerable hexagons -- and its refutation as well. (An n number of possible languages use the same vocabulary; in some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a ubiquitous and lasting system of hexagonal galleries, but library is bread or pyramid or anything else, and these seven words which define it have another value. You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?) 20 | The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms. I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I believe I have mentioned suicides, more and more frequent with the years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species -- the unique species -- is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret. 21 | I have just written the word "infinite." I have not interpolated this adjective out of rhetorical habit; I say that it is not illogical to think that the world is infinite. Those who judge it to be limited postulate that in remote places the corridors and stairways and hexagons can conceivably come to an end -- which is absurd. Those who imagine it to be without limit forget that the possible number of books does have such a limit. I venture to suggest this solution to the ancient problem: The Library is unlimited and cyclical. If an eternal traveler were to cross it in any direction, after centuries he would see that the same volumes were repeated in the same disorder (which, thus repeated, would be an order: the Order). My solitude is gladdened by this elegant hope. (4) 22 | Translated by J. E. I. 23 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /texts/vonnegut.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Got a problem? Just pick up the phone. 2 | It solved them all--and all the same way! 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 6 | B 7 | R 8 | 0 9 | 2 10 | B 11 | 12 | 13 | by KURT VONNEGUT, JR. 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | Everything was perfectly swell. 19 | 20 | There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no 21 | poverty, no wars. 22 | 23 | All diseases were conquered. So was old age. 24 | 25 | Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers. 26 | 27 | The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million 28 | souls. 29 | 30 | One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward 31 | K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man 32 | waiting. Not many people were born a day any more. 33 | 34 | Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average 35 | age was one hundred and twenty-nine. 36 | 37 | X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The 38 | children would be his first. 39 | 40 | Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so 41 | rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His 42 | camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and 43 | demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the 44 | walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths. 45 | 46 | The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial 47 | to a man who had volunteered to die. 48 | 49 | A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, 50 | painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged 51 | visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had 52 | touched him that much before the cure for aging was found. 53 | 54 | The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women 55 | in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, 56 | sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer. 57 | 58 | Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that 59 | were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash-burners. 60 | 61 | Never, never, never--not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan--had a 62 | garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the 63 | loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use. 64 | 65 | A hospital orderly came down the corridor, singing under his breath a 66 | popular song: 67 | 68 | If you don't like my kisses, honey, 69 | Here's what I will do: 70 | I'll go see a girl in purple, 71 | Kiss this sad world toodle-oo. 72 | If you don't want my lovin', 73 | Why should I take up all this space? 74 | I'll get off this old planet, 75 | Let some sweet baby have my place. 76 | 77 | The orderly looked in at the mural and the muralist. "Looks so real," 78 | he said, "I can practically imagine I'm standing in the middle of it." 79 | 80 | "What makes you think you're not in it?" said the painter. He gave a 81 | satiric smile. "It's called 'The Happy Garden of Life,' you know." 82 | 83 | "That's good of Dr. Hitz," said the orderly. 84 | 85 | * * * * * 86 | 87 | He was referring to one of the male figures in white, whose head was a 88 | portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hospital's Chief Obstetrician. Hitz 89 | was a blindingly handsome man. 90 | 91 | "Lot of faces still to fill in," said the orderly. He meant that the 92 | faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. All blanks 93 | were to be filled with portraits of important people on either the 94 | hospital staff or from the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of 95 | Termination. 96 | 97 | "Must be nice to be able to make pictures that look like something," 98 | said the orderly. 99 | 100 | The painter's face curdled with scorn. "You think I'm proud of this 101 | daub?" he said. "You think this is my idea of what life really looks 102 | like?" 103 | 104 | "What's your idea of what life looks like?" said the orderly. 105 | 106 | The painter gestured at a foul dropcloth. "There's a good picture of 107 | it," he said. "Frame that, and you'll have a picture a damn sight more 108 | honest than this one." 109 | 110 | "You're a gloomy old duck, aren't you?" said the orderly. 111 | 112 | "Is that a crime?" said the painter. 113 | 114 | The orderly shrugged. "If you don't like it here, Grandpa--" he said, 115 | and he finished the thought with the trick telephone number that people 116 | who didn't want to live any more were supposed to call. The zero in the 117 | telephone number he pronounced "naught." 118 | 119 | The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B." 120 | 121 | It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets 122 | included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser," 123 | "Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky 124 | Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?" 125 | 126 | "To be or not to be" was the telephone number of the municipal gas 127 | chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination. 128 | 129 | * * * * * 130 | 131 | The painter thumbed his nose at the orderly. "When I decide it's time to 132 | go," he said, "it won't be at the Sheepdip." 133 | 134 | "A do-it-yourselfer, eh?" said the orderly. "Messy business, Grandpa. 135 | Why don't you have a little consideration for the people who have to 136 | clean up after you?" 137 | 138 | The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the 139 | tribulations of his survivors. "The world could do with a good deal more 140 | mess, if you ask me," he said. 141 | 142 | The orderly laughed and moved on. 143 | 144 | Wehling, the waiting father, mumbled something without raising his head. 145 | And then he fell silent again. 146 | 147 | A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike heels. 148 | Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag and overseas cap were all purple, 149 | the purple the painter called "the color of grapes on Judgment Day." 150 | 151 | The medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal of the Service 152 | Division of the Federal Bureau of Termination, an eagle perched on a 153 | turnstile. 154 | 155 | The woman had a lot of facial hair--an unmistakable mustache, in fact. A 156 | curious thing about gas-chamber hostesses was that, no matter how lovely 157 | and feminine they were when recruited, they all sprouted mustaches 158 | within five years or so. 159 | 160 | "Is this where I'm supposed to come?" she said to the painter. 161 | 162 | "A lot would depend on what your business was," he said. "You aren't 163 | about to have a baby, are you?" 164 | 165 | "They told me I was supposed to pose for some picture," she said. "My 166 | name's Leora Duncan." She waited. 167 | 168 | "And you dunk people," he said. 169 | 170 | "What?" she said. 171 | 172 | "Skip it," he said. 173 | 174 | "That sure is a beautiful picture," she said. "Looks just like heaven or 175 | something." 176 | 177 | "Or something," said the painter. He took a list of names from his smock 178 | pocket. "Duncan, Duncan, Duncan," he said, scanning the list. "Yes--here 179 | you are. You're entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here 180 | you'd like me to stick your head on? We've got a few choice ones left." 181 | 182 | She studied the mural bleakly. "Gee," she said, "they're all the same to 183 | me. I don't know anything about art." 184 | 185 | "A body's a body, eh?" he said, "All righty. As a master of fine art, I 186 | recommend this body here." He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who 187 | was carrying dried stalks to a trash-burner. 188 | 189 | "Well," said Leora Duncan, "that's more the disposal people, isn't it? I 190 | mean, I'm in service. I don't do any disposing." 191 | 192 | The painter clapped his hands in mock delight. "You say you don't know 193 | anything about art, and then you prove in the next breath that you know 194 | more about it than I do! Of course the sheave-carrier is wrong for a 195 | hostess! A snipper, a pruner--that's more your line." He pointed to a 196 | figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an apple tree. "How 197 | about her?" he said. "You like her at all?" 198 | 199 | "Gosh--" she said, and she blushed and became humble--"that--that puts 200 | me right next to Dr. Hitz." 201 | 202 | "That upsets you?" he said. 203 | 204 | "Good gravy, no!" she said. "It's--it's just such an honor." 205 | 206 | "Ah, You admire him, eh?" he said. 207 | 208 | "Who doesn't admire him?" she said, worshiping the portrait of Hitz. It 209 | was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred 210 | and forty years old. "Who doesn't admire him?" she said again. "He was 211 | responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in Chicago." 212 | 213 | "Nothing would please me more," said the painter, "than to put you next 214 | to him for all time. Sawing off a limb--that strikes you as 215 | appropriate?" 216 | 217 | "That is kind of like what I do," she said. She was demure about what 218 | she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them. 219 | 220 | * * * * * 221 | 222 | And, while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the 223 | waitingroom bounded Dr. Hitz himself. He was seven feet tall, and he 224 | boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living. 225 | 226 | "Well, Miss Duncan! Miss Duncan!" he said, and he made a joke. "What 227 | are you doing here?" he said. "This isn't where the people leave. This 228 | is where they come in!" 229 | 230 | "We're going to be in the same picture together," she said shyly. 231 | 232 | "Good!" said Dr. Hitz heartily. "And, say, isn't that some picture?" 233 | 234 | "I sure am honored to be in it with you," she said. 235 | 236 | "Let me tell you," he said, "I'm honored to be in it with you. Without 237 | women like you, this wonderful world we've got wouldn't be possible." 238 | 239 | He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms. 240 | "Guess what was just born," he said. 241 | 242 | "I can't," she said. 243 | 244 | "Triplets!" he said. 245 | 246 | "Triplets!" she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications of 247 | triplets. 248 | 249 | The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents of 250 | the child could find someone who would volunteer to die. Triplets, if 251 | they were all to live, called for three volunteers. 252 | 253 | "Do the parents have three volunteers?" said Leora Duncan. 254 | 255 | "Last I heard," said Dr. Hitz, "they had one, and were trying to scrape 256 | another two up." 257 | 258 | "I don't think they made it," she said. "Nobody made three appointments 259 | with us. Nothing but singles going through today, unless somebody 260 | called in after I left. What's the name?" 261 | 262 | "Wehling," said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy. 263 | "Edward K. Wehling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be." 264 | 265 | He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely 266 | wretched chuckle. "Present," he said. 267 | 268 | "Oh, Mr. Wehling," said Dr. Hitz, "I didn't see you." 269 | 270 | "The invisible man," said Wehling. 271 | 272 | "They just phoned me that your triplets have been born," said Dr. Hitz. 273 | "They're all fine, and so is the mother. I'm on my way in to see them 274 | now." 275 | 276 | "Hooray," said Wehling emptily. 277 | 278 | "You don't sound very happy," said Dr. Hitz. 279 | 280 | "What man in my shoes wouldn't be happy?" said Wehling. He gestured with 281 | his hands to symbolize care-free simplicity. "All I have to do is pick 282 | out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternal 283 | grandfather to the Happy Hooligan, and come back here with a receipt." 284 | 285 | * * * * * 286 | 287 | Dr. Hitz became rather severe with Wehling, towered over him. "You don't 288 | believe in population control, Mr. Wehling?" he said. 289 | 290 | "I think it's perfectly keen," said Wehling tautly. 291 | 292 | "Would you like to go back to the good old days, when the population of 293 | the Earth was twenty billion--about to become forty billion, then eighty 294 | billion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what a drupelet 295 | is, Mr. Wehling?" said Hitz. 296 | 297 | "Nope," said Wehling sulkily. 298 | 299 | "A drupelet, Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little 300 | pulpy grains of a blackberry," said Dr. Hitz. "Without population 301 | control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old 302 | planet like drupelets on a blackberry! Think of it!" 303 | 304 | Wehling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall. 305 | 306 | "In the year 2000," said Dr. Hitz, "before scientists stepped in and 307 | laid down the law, there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around, 308 | and nothing to eat but sea-weed--and still people insisted on their 309 | right to reproduce like jackrabbits. And their right, if possible, to 310 | live forever." 311 | 312 | "I want those kids," said Wehling quietly. "I want all three of them." 313 | 314 | "Of course you do," said Dr. Hitz. "That's only human." 315 | 316 | "I don't want my grandfather to die, either," said Wehling. 317 | 318 | "Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox," 319 | said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically. 320 | 321 | "I wish people wouldn't call it that," said Leora Duncan. 322 | 323 | "What?" said Dr. Hitz. 324 | 325 | "I wish people wouldn't call it 'the Catbox,' and things like that," she 326 | said. "It gives people the wrong impression." 327 | 328 | "You're absolutely right," said Dr. Hitz. "Forgive me." He corrected 329 | himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a title 330 | no one ever used in conversation. "I should have said, 'Ethical Suicide 331 | Studios,'" he said. 332 | 333 | "That sounds so much better," said Leora Duncan. 334 | 335 | "This child of yours--whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Wehling," 336 | said Dr. Hitz. "He or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean, 337 | rich planet, thanks to population control. In a garden like that mural 338 | there." He shook his head. "Two centuries ago, when I was a young man, 339 | it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now 340 | centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us as far as the 341 | imagination cares to travel." 342 | 343 | He smiled luminously. 344 | 345 | The smile faded as he saw that Wehling had just drawn a revolver. 346 | 347 | Wehling shot Dr. Hitz dead. "There's room for one--a great big one," he 348 | said. 349 | 350 | And then he shot Leora Duncan. "It's only death," he said to her as she 351 | fell. "There! Room for two." 352 | 353 | And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children. 354 | 355 | Nobody came running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots. 356 | 357 | The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively 358 | on the sorry scene. 359 | 360 | * * * * * 361 | 362 | The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born 363 | and, once born, demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply and to live as 364 | long as possible--to do all that on a very small planet that would have 365 | to last forever. 366 | 367 | All the answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer, 368 | surely, than a Catbox, a Happy Hooligan, an Easy Go. He thought of war. 369 | He thought of plague. He thought of starvation. 370 | 371 | He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to 372 | the dropcloths below. And then he decided he had had about enough of 373 | life in the Happy Garden of Life, too, and he came slowly down from the 374 | ladder. 375 | 376 | He took Wehling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself. 377 | 378 | But he didn't have the nerve. 379 | 380 | And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went 381 | to it, dialed the well-remembered number: "2 B R 0 2 B." 382 | 383 | "Federal Bureau of Termination," said the very warm voice of a hostess. 384 | 385 | "How soon could I get an appointment?" he asked, speaking very 386 | carefully. 387 | 388 | "We could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir," she said. "It 389 | might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation." 390 | 391 | "All right," said the painter, "fit me in, if you please." And he gave 392 | her his name, spelling it out. 393 | 394 | "Thank you, sir," said the hostess. "Your city thanks you; your country 395 | thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is 396 | from future generations." 397 | 398 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /texts/gillman.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. 2 | A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity--but that would be asking too much of fate! 3 | Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. 4 | Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? 5 | John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. 6 | John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. 7 | John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. 8 | You see he does not believe I am sick! 9 | And what can one do? 10 | If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression--a slight hysterical tendency-- what is one to do? 11 | My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. 12 | So I take phosphates or phosphites--whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again. 13 | Personally, I disagree with their ideas. 14 | Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. 15 | But what is one to do? 16 | I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal--having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. 17 | I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus--but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. 18 | So I will let it alone and talk about the house. 19 | The most beautiful place! It is quite alone standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people. 20 | There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden--large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them. 21 | There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now. 22 | There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and coheirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years. 23 | That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care--there is something strange about the house--I can feel it. 24 | I even said so to John one moonlight evening but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window. 25 | I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition. 26 | But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself-- before him, at least, and that makes me very tired. 27 | I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it. 28 | He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another. 29 | He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction. 30 | I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more. 31 | He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. "Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time. ' So we took the nursery at the top of the house. 32 | It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. 33 | The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off--the paper in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life. 34 | One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. 35 | It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions. 36 | The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. 37 | It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. 38 | No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long. 39 | There comes John, and I must put this away,--he hates to have me write a word. 40 | ---------- 41 | We have been here two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before, since that first day. 42 | I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength. 43 | John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. 44 | I am glad my case is not serious! 45 | But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. 46 | John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. 47 | Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! 48 | I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already! 49 | Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,--to dress and entertain, and order things. 50 | It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! 51 | And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous. 52 | I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall-paper! 53 | At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies. 54 | He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on. 55 | "You know the place is doing you good," he said, "and really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months' rental." 56 | "Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms there." 57 | Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain. 58 | But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things. 59 | It is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim. 60 | I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper. 61 | Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deepshaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees. 62 | Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try. 63 | I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me. 64 | But I find I get pretty tired when I try. 65 | It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now. 66 | I wish I could get well faster. 67 | But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had! 68 | There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. 69 | I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere There is one place where two breaths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. 70 | I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store. 71 | I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend. 72 | I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe. 73 | The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the children have made here. 74 | The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother--they must have had perseverance as well as hatred. 75 | Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars. 76 | But I don't mind it a bit--only the paper. 77 | There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing. 78 | She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick! 79 | But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows. 80 | There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows. 81 | This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a, different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. 82 | But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so--I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design. 83 | There's sister on the stairs! 84 | 85 | ---------- 86 | Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are all gone and I am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week. 87 | Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now. 88 | But it tired me all the same. 89 | John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. 90 | But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so! 91 | Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far. 92 | I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous. 93 | I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. 94 | Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone. 95 | And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to. 96 | So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal. 97 | I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps because of the wall-paper. 98 | It dwells in my mind so! 99 | I lie here on this great immovable bed--it is nailed down, I believe--and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion. 100 | I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of. 101 | It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise. 102 | Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes--a kind of "debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens--go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity. 103 | But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase. 104 | The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction. 105 | They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion. 106 | There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,--the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction. 107 | It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap I guess. 108 | 109 | ---------- 110 | I don't know why I should write this. 111 | I don't want to. 112 | I don't feel able. And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way--it is such a relief! 113 | But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief. 114 | Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much. 115 | John says I mustn't lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat. 116 | Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. 117 | But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished . 118 | It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose. 119 | And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head. 120 | He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well. 121 | He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me. 122 | There's one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wall-paper. 123 | If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What a fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds. 124 | I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here after all, I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see. 125 | Of course I never mention it to them any more--I am too wise,--but I keep watch of it all the same. 126 | There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. 127 | Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. 128 | It is always the same shape, only very numerous. 129 | And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit. I wonder--I begin to think--I wish John would take me away from here! 130 | 131 | ---------- 132 | It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so. 133 | But I tried it last night. 134 | It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun does. 135 | I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one window or another. 136 | John was asleep and I hated to waken him, so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wall-paper till I felt creepy. 137 | The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. 138 | I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake. 139 | "What is it, little girl?" he said. "Don't go walking about like that--you'll get cold." 140 | I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away. 141 | "Why darling!" said he, "our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can't see how to leave before. 142 | "The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you." 143 | "I don't weigh a bit more," said 1, "nor as much; and my appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away!" 144 | "Bless her little heart!" said he with a big hug, "she shall be as sick as she pleases! But now let's improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!" 145 | "And you won't go away?" I asked gloomily. 146 | "Why, how can 1, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really dear you are better!" 147 | "Better in body perhaps--" I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word. 148 | "My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?" 149 | So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't, and lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately. 150 | 151 | ---------- 152 | On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind. 153 | The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. 154 | You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream. 155 | The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in endless convolutions--why, that is something like it. 156 | That is, sometimes! 157 | There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes. 158 | When the sun shoots in through the east window--I always watch for that first long, straight ray--it changes so quickly that I never can quite believe it. 159 | That is why I watch it always. 160 | By moonlight--the moon shines in all night when there is a moon--I wouldn't know it was the same paper. 161 | At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be. 162 | I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman. 163 | By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour. 164 | I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me, and to sleep all I can. 165 | Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal. 166 | It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't sleep. 167 | And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm awake--O no! 168 | The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John. 169 | He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look. 170 | It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis,--that perhaps it is the paper! 171 | I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I've caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once. 172 | She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper--she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry-- asked me why I should frighten her so! 173 | Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she wished we would be more careful! 174 | Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself! 175 | 176 | ---------- 177 | Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was. 178 | 179 | John is so pleased to see me improve ! He laughed a little the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wall-paper. 180 | I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wall-paper--he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away. 181 | I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week more, and I think that will be enough. 182 | 183 | ---------- 184 | I'm feeling ever so much better! I don't sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime. 185 | In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing. 186 | There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously. 187 | It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw--not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. 188 | But there is something else about that paper-- the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here. 189 | It creeps all over the house. 190 | I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs. 191 | It gets into my hair. 192 | Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it--there is that smell! 193 | Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like. 194 | It is not bad--at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met. 195 | In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me. 196 | It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house--to reach the smell. 197 | But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell. 198 | There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch, as if it had been rubbed over and over. 199 | I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round--round and round and round--it makes me dizzy! 200 | 201 | ---------- 202 | I really have discovered something at last. 203 | Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. 204 | The front pattern does move--and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! 205 | Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. 206 | Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. 207 | And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern--it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads. 208 | They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white! 209 | If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad. 210 | 211 | ---------- 212 | I think that woman gets out in the daytime! 213 | And I'll tell you why--privately--I've seen her! 214 | I can see her out of every one of my windows! 215 | It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight. 216 | I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. 217 | I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight! 218 | I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once. 219 | And John is so queer now, that I don't want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don't want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself. 220 | I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once. 221 | But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time. 222 | And though I always see her, she may be able to creep faster than I can turn! 223 | I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind. 224 | 225 | ---------- 226 | If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it, little by little. 227 | I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much. 228 | There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don't like the look in his eyes. 229 | And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions about me. She had a very good report to give. 230 | She said I slept a good deal in the daytime. 231 | John knows I don't sleep very well at night, for all I'm so quiet! 232 | He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind. 233 | As if I couldn't see through him! 234 | Still, I don't wonder he acts so, sleeping under this paper for three months. 235 | It only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jennie are secretly affected by it. 236 | 237 | ---------- 238 | Hurrah! This is the last day, but it is enough. John to stay in town over night, and won't be out until this evening. 239 | Jennie wanted to sleep with me--the sly thing! but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone. 240 | That was clever, for really I wasn't alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. 241 | I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper. 242 | A strip about as high as my head and half around the room. 243 | And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish it to-day! 244 | We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture down again to leave things as they were before. 245 | Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing. 246 | She laughed and said she wouldn't mind doing it herself, but I must not get tired. 247 | How she betrayed herself that time! 248 | But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me,--not alive ! 249 | She tried to get me out of the room--it was too patent! But I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me even for dinner--I would call when I woke. 250 | So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it. 251 | We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home to-morrow. 252 | I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again. 253 | How those children did tear about here! 254 | This bedstead is fairly gnawed! 255 | But I must get to work. 256 | I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path. 257 | I don't want to go out, and I don't want to have anybody come in, till John comes. 258 | I want to astonish him. 259 | I've got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her! 260 | But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on! 261 | This bed will not move! 262 | I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner--but it hurt my teeth. 263 | Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision! 264 | I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try. 265 | Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued. 266 | I don't like to look out of the windows even-- there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. 267 | I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did? 268 | But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope--you don't get me out in the road there ! 269 | I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! 270 | It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! 271 | I don't want to go outside. I won't, even if Jennie asks me to. 272 | For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. 273 | But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way. 274 | Why there's John at the door! 275 | It is no use, young man, you can't open it! 276 | How he does call and pound! 277 | Now he's crying for an axe. 278 | It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door! 279 | "John dear!" said I in the gentlest voice, "the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!" 280 | That silenced him for a few moments. 281 | Then he said--very quietly indeed, "Open the door, my darling!" 282 | "I can't," said I. "The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!" 283 | And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it of course, and came in. He stopped short by the door. 284 | "What is the matter?" he cried. "For God's sake, what are you doing!" 285 | I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. 286 | "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" 287 | Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /index.html: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
651 |
652 |
704 |
705 |
706 | 
WordWanderer
655 | 656 |take your text for a walk
657 | 658 | 663 | 664 |
665 |
686 |
687 |
688 | 666 | 681 |
682 | 683 | 684 | 685 |689 | 690 | 691 |
692 |
693 |
694 |
697 | By Marian Dörk and Dawn Knight carried out when at Newcastle University
698 | funded by the RCUK Digital Economy programme’s PATINA project.
699 | More details about the concept and methods are in this article.
700 | The code of the WordWanderer prototype is on GitHub.
701 |
707 |
715 |
716 |
717 |
718 |
719 |
720 |
721 |
722 |
723 | WordWanderer
708 |709 | 710 | 711 |
712 | 713 | 714 |
724 |
725 | 
728 |
729 | 
734 |
735 | 
741 |
742 |
755 |
756 |
757 | The WordWanderer interface has three main views:
726 | 727 |
728 |
729 | The cloud view displays the most common words of a text using font size 730 | to represent relative frequencies. 731 | The ordering of the words is alphabetical from top to bottom, left to right. When hovering over a word, its relationship with other words, in terms of their rate of proximal co-occurrence in a text, are highlighted in colour.
732 | 733 |
734 |
735 | Clicking on a word selects it for the context view. 736 | The word sizing corresponds to how often they occurr in the text near 737 | the selected word: the larger the word, the stronger the association between the words and the selected term. 738 | Vertical positioning is alphabetical and horizontal positioning represents sentence positions relative to the selected word.
739 | 740 |
741 |
742 | Dragging a line between two words triggers the comparison view. 743 | In this view a word's size corresponds to the combined association strength with the two words. 744 | Here, the horizontal position represents the difference in association between the two selected words. 745 | If a word occurs more often with the left word, it will be placed more towards the left side of the screen.
746 | 747 |All views show a limited a number of words. To find a specific word there is a search 748 | function above the visualization. Simply type in a word and hit enter to activate this function. In the options (top right), you can set which types of words are included, based on their parts of speech. 749 | When in context view, the instances of the selected word are displayed below the visualization.
750 | 751 | 753 | 754 |
758 |
759 |
792 |
793 | Show (select all)
760 | 761 |-
762 |
- 763 |
- 764 |
- 765 |
- 766 |
-
768 |
- 769 |
- 770 |
- 771 |
- 772 |
-
774 |
- 775 |
- 776 |
- 777 |
- 778 |
Hide
782 | 783 |-
784 |
- 785 |
- 786 |
794 |
795 |
796 |
797 |
798 |
799 |
800 |
801 |
802 |
803 |
1989 |
1990 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------