Toledo, the Story of an Old Spanish Capital. E-book. Formato EPUB Hannah Lynch   -  Librorium Editions, 2023  - 

WHAT more stupefying contrast than that of cheap commonplace Madrid (cheap alas! only in the artistic sense) and the legendary still visage of Toledo? The capital you leave abustle with modern movement, glaring, gesticulating, chattering, animated in its own empty and insignificant fashion, with its pleasant street of Alcala, so engagingly unhistoric, its shop-fronts full of expensive and second-rate articles from other capitals, the vulgar vivacity of the Puerta del Sol thronged with everlasting gossips in trousers and wide-brimmed hats; with its swindling hotel-keepers and insolent drivers. The train sweeps you past the wide empty bed of the Manzanares, covered here and there with a film you understand by courtesy to represent a river, and the city behind is a gay compact picture, slightly waving upward from its bridges, white and flourishing above the broad yellow plain. The tones of the land are rough and crude, red striking hotly against brown and greyish purple. Here and there a solitary hill, burnt and defoliaged, with a glimpse of ruined ramparts, a mule-path along which a file of peasants pass, the women lost in roomy saddles, with feet dangling in the air, and red or yellow handkerchiefs tied under their chins. Carts move slowly along the old diligence road, guided by heavy-browed males.

French Life in Town and CountryIillustrated. E-book. Formato EPUB Hannah Lynch   -  Word Well Books, 2022  - 

Author Hannah Lynch (1859-1904) was an Irish feminist, novelist, journalist and translator. She spent much of her working life in Paris, although she also had lived in both Spain and Greece. In addition to writing satirical pieces on Irish political causes, she wrote several novels, some motivated by Irish themes. She was part of the Paris salons of the Belle Epoque as well as the Irish Literary Revival in Dublin, often lecturing in Ireland. Her non-fiction works included “French Life in Town and Country,” published in 1901 in the United States, a general look at the social life and customs of the French people. Chapter include: French rural and provincial life — Paris and Parisianism — Social diversions and distinctions — The army and the nation — Secular and religious education — National institutions — Home-life in France — Peasant and artisan — The press and the people's colleges — The Parisian lecture and salon — The "little people" of Paris — Organised philanthropy and public assistance.