Works

Somewhere, sometime, long, long ago, I read a poem. It was soon forgotten ... but the first line has stuck in my memory -

'How fair, how fresh were the roses ...'
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I was going from Hamburg to London in a small steamer. We were two passengers; I and a little female monkey, whom a Hamburg merchant was sending as a present to his English partner.
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One day the Supreme Being took it into his head to give a great banquet in his palace of azure.

All the virtues were invited. Only the virtues ... men he did not ask ... only ladies.
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I was walking along the street ... I was stopped by a decrepit old beggar.

Bloodshot, tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds.... Oh, how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature!
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The last day of July; for a thousand versts around, Russia, our native land.
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Us two in the room; my dog and me.... Outside a fearful storm is howling.

The dog sits in front of me, and looks me straight in the face.

And I, too, look into his face.
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I stood on the top of a sloping hillside; before me, a gold and silver sea of shifting colour, stretched the ripe rye.
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He had every qualification for becoming the scourge of his family.
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I fancied I was somewhere in Russia, in the wilds, in a simple country house.
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There lived a fool.

For a long time he lived in peace and contentment; but by degrees rumours began to reach him that he was regarded on all sides as a vulgar idiot.
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I dreamed that we were sitting, a party of twenty, in a big room with open windows.

Among us were women, children, old men.... We were all talking of some very well-known subject, talking noisily and indistinctly....

We had once been close and warm friends.... But an unlucky moment came ... and we parted as enemies.
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I used to know a monk, a hermit, a saint. He lived only for the sweetness of prayer; and steeping himself in it, he would stand so long on the cold floor of the church that his legs below the knees grew numb and senseless as bl...

I stood before a chain of beautiful mountains forming a semicircle. A young, green forest covered them from summit to base.
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Days of darkness, of dreariness, have come.... Thy own infirmities, the sufferings of those dear to thee, the chill and gloom of old age. All that thou hast loved, to which thou hast given thyself irrevocably, is falling, going...

I was walking over a wide plain alone.

And suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind my back.... Some one was walking after me.
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O realm of azure! O realm of light and colour, of youth and happiness! I have beheld thee in dream. We were together, a few, in a beautiful little boat, gaily decked out. Like a swan's breast the white sail swelled below the st...

Two friends were sitting at a table drinking tea.

A sudden hubbub arose in the street. They heard pitiable groans, furious abuse, bursts of malignant laughter.
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The last days of August.... Autumn was already at hand.

The sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.
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A sumptuous, brilliantly lighted hall; a number of ladies and gentlemen.
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