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Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 5 (1927-11).djvu/42

 bleating of goats whose milk supplied the native quarter. To our right the yellow thread of the Tiber was faintly visible.

Clayton smiled understandingly and waved a hand toward the streets below as he sank luxuriously into a comfortable chair.

"Great thing for a rest, Ebson," he remarked. "It's a change from the hurry and bustle of the average American city. I like it."

"Yes," I agreed, "and a change always means rest. Although we are both young we've been living strenuously in a modern business world, and can't help appreciating the contrast."

We sat for some time in silence, the while I noticed Clayton's features displaying a growing pensive mood. His former joviality was disappearing. I made no attempt to encourage conversation, for I felt that it would come when the time was ripe.

"Friend Ebson," said Lee Clayton at length, dropping his listless mien and leaning toward me, "for many years the repetition of a certain dream has troubled me. The vision first appeared when I was in high school and followed me throughout my entire college career, its vividness increasing with the passing of the years. It pertains to the solution of the mystery surrounding the ambiguous expression in the Greek, Latin and Jewish scripts where the incendiary of the temple of Jerusalem is invariably referred to as 'a certain soldier'. In my constantly recurring dream I seem continually on the verge of discovering the identity of this 'certain soldier', but always I awake just before solving the mystery. My trip upon this occasion to the Eternal City is to find out, if possible, who threw the flaming torch into the temple at Jerusalem when the legions of Titus took the city of the Jews. If it is ever possible to bring my haunting dream to a consummation it should be here amid the relics of its original enactment."

I must have gazed at him incredulously, for he continued hastily. "In all sincerity I mean what I say, my friend. Either here or in Jerusalem I should be able to ascertain the identity of that 'certain soldier' who threw a lighted torch into a window of the sanctuary. Why, man alive, think of the responsibility of that act!"

Had the heat of a semi-tropic sun or the fatigue of daily sight-seeing affected my friend's mind? I hesitated before voicing a mild rebuke, and in that moment of pause the spirit of adventure, tempered with tolerance for the incomprehensible whims of another, possessed me. My answer must have surprized him.

"There's a quest worthy of some time and effort!" I answered with more enthusiasm than I really felt. "The Forum Romanum has already disclosed to us a few of its secrets, and why not this one? We'll show the world yet that Tacitus and Josephus and a few others of the ancients didn’t get exactly the right dope on all this."

My light mood did not affect Clayton. He continued seriously, his eyes showing a dreamy expression.

"You must remember the historians, Josephus and Tacitus, were both contemporaries of Titus—and—and this 'certain soldier'. They had first-hand evidence and certainly ought to have been more explicit in their details. As a matter of fact," he added, "they are more evasive in their narrations of the events connected with the siege of Jerusalem, of which they must have been eye-witnesses, than they are regarding historical occurrences preceding their era."

"Yes, that is strange," I agreed. "How do you account for it?"


text: Primitive Culture/Chapter 11

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Primitive Culture/Chapter 11


text:
Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/332

Rh instruction extends from two to three years, which are employed in writing on the plantain-leaf. In some districts the tables just mentioned are postponed to this stage, but in this district they are included in the exercises of the second stage. The first exercise taught on the plantain-leaf is to initiate the scholar into the simplest form of letter-writing, to instruct him to connect words in a composition with each other, and to distinguish the written from the spoken forms of Bengali vocables. The written forms are often abbreviated in speech, by the omission of a vowel or a consonant, or by the running of two syllables into one; and the scholar is taught to use in writing the full, not the abbreviated form. The correct orthography of words of Sanskrit origin, which abound in the language of the people, is beyond the reach of the ordinary class of teachers. About the same time the scholar is taught the rules of arithmetic, beginning with addition and subtraction; but multiplication and division are not taught as separate rules, all the arithmetical processes hereafter mentioned being effected by addition and subtraction, with the aid of a multiplication-table which extends to the number of 20, and which is repeated aloud once every morning by the whole school, and is thus acquired, not as a separate task by each boy, but by the mere force of joint repetition and mutual imitation. After addition and subtraction, the arithmetical rules taught divide themselves into two classes, agricultural and commercial; in one or both of which instruction is given, more or less fully, according to the capacity of the teacher and the wishes of the parents. The rules, applied to agricultural accounts, explain the forms of keeping debt and credit accounts; the calculation of the value of daily or monthly labour, at a given monthly or annual rate; the calculation of the area of land, whose sides measure a given number of kathas or bighas; the description of the boundaries of land, and the determination of its length, breadth, and contents; and the form of revenue-accounts for a given quantity of land. There are numerous other forms of agricultural account, but no others appear to be taught in the schools of this district. The rules of commercial accounts explain the mode of calculating the value of a given number of seers, at a given price per maund; the price of a given number of quarters and chataks, at a given price per seer; the price of a tola, at a given rate per chatak; the number of cowries in a given number of annas, at a given number of cowries per rupee; the interest of money, and the discount chargeable on the exchange of the inferior sorts of rupees. There are other forms of commercial account also in common use, but these are not taught in the schools. The fourth and last stage of instruction generally includes a period of two years—often less, and seldom more. The accounts briefly and superficially taught in the preceding stage, are now taught more thoroughly, and at greater length; and this is accompanied by the composition in business letters, petitions, grants, leases, acceptances, notes of bond, &c., together with the forms of address belonging to the different grades of rank and station. When the scholars have written on paper about a year, they are considered qualified to engage in the unassisted perusal of Bengali works, and they often read at home such productions as the translation of the Ramayana, Manasa, MangalManasa Mangal [sic], &c. &c.”


text: American Speedy Printing Centers Inc. v. Sir Speedy Inc.


text:
Author:Motoyoshi

Works

 * Gosen Wakashū (as contributor)
 * Motoyoshi Shinnō-shū
 * Motoyoshi Shinnō-shū

title: Author:Motoyoshi


text: Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/74


text:
Author:Fujiwara no Okikaze

Works

 * Kokin Wakashū (as contributor)
 * Kokin Wakashū (as contributor)

title: Author:Fujiwara no Okikaze