1890 — Odd Ends

Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers, by W. A. Clouston (1890). A series of somewhat scholarly but enjoyably readable essays on Arabic and other folklore.

Bill and I have talked about this book before. As I was post-processing it, I became intrigued by the references and notes to other works of stories and folklore — so much so that I’m trying to find (in a totally non-systematic way) the books that are mentioned so I can provide them to Project Gutenberg. Up next for DP is A Group of Eastern Romances, and then later The Bakhtyār Nāma.

Go check it out, and you can read more jokes (and other stories, of course) like this:

A man went to a professional scribe and asked him to write a letter for him. The scribe said that he had a pain in his foot. “A pain in your foot!” echoed the man. “I don’t want to send you to any place that you should make such an excuse.” “Very true,” said the scribe; “but, whenever I write a letter for any one, I am always sent for to read it, because no one else can make it out.”

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In Praise of Money

September 27th, 2005 | Excerpts
1890, DP, Poetry, Whole

“He that has money in the scales,” says Saádí, “has strength in his arms, and he who has not the command of money is destitute of friends in the world.”—Hundreds of similar sarcastic observations on the power of wealth might be cited from the Hindú writers, such as: “He who has riches has friends; he who has riches has relations; he who has riches is even a sage!” The following verses in praise of money are, I think, worth reproducing, if only for their whimsical arrangement:

Honey,

Our Money

We find in the end

Both relation and friend;

’Tis a helpmate for better, for worse.

Neither father nor mother,

Nor sister nor brother,

Nor uncles nor aunts,

Nor dozens

Of cousins,

Are like a friend in the purse.

Still regard the main chance;

’Tis the clink

Of the chink

Is the music to make the heart dance.

I’ve been post-processing Flowers from a Persian Garden, and Other Papers (1890) by W. A. Clouston since Februrary. Actually, I started it in February, set it aside for long months, and am now getting back to it.

It is a fabulous work! It’s a compilation of papers on Saádí’s Gulistán, “Oriental” humor (meaning Turkish, Arabic and Persian), the Tútí Náma (Tales of a Parrot), Rabbinical tales, “An Arabian Tale of Love” (the story of Majnún and Laylá), jokes about the clergy in the middle ages, and beards.

It’s chock-full of references to other works that I’d like to see and/or provide to PG. Some are there of course, like Clouston’s own [Book of Noodles][], but others, like the original translation into English of the Gulistán (by Francis Gladwin in 1808) are not. (There are a couple of other translations into English available on the net, but the point for me is to “complete the set.”)

One of the best things about this book, besides it’s sheer readability and humor, is its footnotes. They are extensive, complex and complete. No ibid.s here. They enhance the main text, give references for further reading, relate discussions about the variants of the stories, and have more jokes. Sometimes, like in the footnote I’ve replicated above, the information is there just because Clouston couldn’t bear to leave it out. Thank goodness for that!

It will be a while before the text is posted to PG (the index and cross-references are rather complicated), but I hope this excerpt will encourage you to watch for it!

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In Luck at Last

July 3rd, 2005 | Project Gutenberg
1890, Fiction

In Luck at Last, by Walter Besant. This edition published circa 1890. This is a little novel that was published originally as the Christmas number of All the Year Round in 1884. All the Year Round was edited by Charles Dickens, and this story has a bit of the same social commentary that Dickens is noted for.

There is also a short story (”The Yachtsman”) tacked onto the end, with an unknown author.

Thanks to Sankar Viswanathan for Post Processing this book!

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Deaconesses in Europe and Their Lessons for America

Ten Tales

Captains of Industry

A Crooked Path

Wits and Beaux of Society, Volume 1

Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers

In Praise of Money

In Luck at Last

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