text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/433

 (iii) When boys are only six years old, it is too early to determine their vocation in life, or whether they are more suited for learning or for manual labour. At this age, neither the mind nor the inclinations are sufficiently developed, while, later on, it will be easy to form a sound opinion on both. In the same way, while plants are quite small, a gardener cannot tell which to hoe up and which to leave, but has to wait until they are more advanced. Nor should admission to the Latin-School be reserved for the sons of rich men, nobles, and magistrates, as if these were the only boys who would ever be able fill similar positions. The wind blows where it will, and does not always begin to blow at a fixed time.

3. (iv) The next reason is that my universal method has not as its sole object the Latin language, that nymph on whom such unbounded admiration is generally wasted, but seeks a way by which each modern language may be taught as well (that every spirit may praise the Lord more and more). This design should not be frustrated by the complete and arbitrary omission of the Vernacular-School.

4. (v) To attempt to teach a foreign language before the mother-tongue has been learned is as irrational as to teach a boy to ride before he can walk. To proceed step by step is of great importance, as we have seen in Principle 4. Cicero declared that he could not teach elocution to those who were unable to speak, and, in the same way, my method confesses its inability to teach Latin to those who are ignorant of their mother-tongue, since the one paves the way for the other.

5. (vi) Finally, what I have in view is an education in the objects that surround us, and a brief survey of this education can be best obtained from books written in the mother-tongue, which embody a list of the things that exist in the external world. This preliminary survey will render the acquisition of Latin far easier, for it will only be necessary to adapt a new nomenclature to objects that are already known; while to the knowledge of actual facts may


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/434

 be added by degrees that of the causes which underlie those facts.

6. Proceeding, therefore, on the basis of my fourfold division of schools, we may define the Vernacular-School as follows. The aim and object of the Vernacular-School should be to teach to all the young, between the ages of six and twelve, such things as will be of use to them throughout their whole lives. That is to say:

(i) To read with ease both print and writing in their mother-tongue.

(ii) To write, first with accuracy, then with speed, and finally with confidence, in accordance with the grammatical rules of the mother-tongue. These rules should be written in a popular form, and the boys should be exercised in them.

(iii) To count, with ciphers and with counters, as far as is necessary for practical purposes.

(iv) To measure spaces, such as length, breadth, and distance, with skill.

(v) To sing well-known melodies, and, in the case of those who display especial aptitude, to learn the elements of advanced music.

(vi) To learn by heart the greater number of the psalms and hymns that are used in the country. For, if brought up in the praise of God, they will be able (as the Apostle says) to exhort one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing to God from their hearts.

(vii) Besides the Catechism they should know the most important stories and verses in the Bible, and should be able to repeat them word for word.

(viii) They should learn the principles of morality, which should be drawn up in the shape of rules and accompanied by illustrations suitable to the age and understanding of the pupils. They should also begin to put these principles into practice.

(ix) They should learn as much economics and politics as is necessary to enable them to understand what they see daily at home and in the state.

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


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/435

 (x) They should also learn the general history of the world; its creation, its fall, its redemption, and its preservation by God up to the present day.

(xi) In addition, they should learn the most important facts of cosmography, such as the spherical shape of the heavens, the globular shape of the earth suspended in their midst, the tides of the ocean, the shapes of seas, the courses of rivers, the principal divisions of the earth, and the chief kingdoms of Europe; but, in particular, the cities, mountains, rivers, and other remarkable features of their own country.

(xii) Finally, they should learn the most important principles of the mechanical arts, both that they may not be too ignorant of what goes on in the world around them, and that any special inclination towards things of this kind may assert itself with greater ease later on.

7. If all these subjects have been skilfully handled in the Vernacular-School, the result will be that those youths who begin the study of Latin or who enter on agriculture, trade, or professional life will encounter nothing which is absolutely new to them; while the details of their trades, the words that they hear in church, and the information that they acquire from books, will be to them nothing but the more detailed exposition or the more particular application of facts with which they are already acquainted. They will thus find themselves all the fitter to use their understanding, their powers of action, and their judgment.

8. To attain this result we employ the following means:—

(i) All the children in the Vernacular-School, who are destined to spend six years there, should be divided into six classes, each of which, if possible, should have a classroom to itself, that it may not hinder the others.

(ii) Specially prepared books should be supplied to each class, and these should contain the whole subject-matter of the literary, moral, and religious instruction prescribed for the class. Within these limits no other books should be needed, and, by their aid, the desired


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/436

 result should infallibly be obtained. They should embody a complete grammar of the mother-tongue, in which should be comprised the names of all the objects that children of this age can understand, as well as a selection of the most common phrases in use.

9. These class-books should be six in number, corresponding to the number of the classes, and should differ, not in their subject-matter, but in their way of presenting it. Each should embrace all the above-mentioned subjects; but the earlier ones should treat of them in a general manner, choosing their better known and easier features; while those which come later should draw attention to the less known and more complex details, or should point out some fresh way of treating the subject, and thus excite interest and attention. The truth of this will soon be evident.

10. Care must be taken to suit all these books to the children for whom they are intended; for children like whimsicality and humour, and detest pedantry and severity. Instruction, therefore, should ever be combined with amusement, that they may take pleasure in learning serious things which will be of genuine use to them later on, and that their dispositions may be, as it were, perpetually enticed to develope in the manner desired.

11. The titles of these books should be of such a kind as to please and attract the young, and should at the same time express the nature of their contents. Suitable names might be borrowed from the nomenclature of a garden, that sweetest possession of youth. Thus, if the whole school be compared to a garden, the book of the lowest class might be called the violet-bed, that of the second class the rose-bed, that of the third the grass-plot, and so on.

12. Of the matter and form of these books I will speak in greater detail elsewhere. I will only add that, as they are written in the mother-tongue, the technical terms of the arts should also be expressed in the vernacular, and not in Latin or Greek. For (1) we wish the young to


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/127

 attend to the matter, but presumably their time is taken up with complicated climates like England's.

While your eyes are drinking in the characteristics of Bonny scenery you notice a peculiar smell—an intensification of that smell you noticed when nearing Bonny, in the evening, out at sea. That's the breath of the malarial mud, laden with fever, and the chances are you will be down to-morrow. If it is near evening time now, you can watch it becoming incarnate, creeping and crawling and gliding out from the side creeks and between the mangrove-roots, laying itself upon the river, stretching and rolling in a kind of grim play, and finally crawling up the side of the ship to come on board and leave its cloak of moisture that grows green mildew in a few hours over all. Noise you will not be much troubled with there is only that rain, a sound I have known make men who are sick with fever well-nigh mad, and now and again the depressing cry of the curlews which abound here. This combination is such that after six or eight hours of it you will be thankful to hear your shipmates start to work the winch. I take it you are hard up when you relish a winch. And you I will say—let your previous experience of the world be what it may—Good Heavens, what a place!

Five times have I been now in Bonny River and I like it. You always do get to like it if you live long enough to allow the strange fascination of the place to get a hold on you; but when I first entered it, on a ship commanded by Captain Murray in '93, in the wet season, i.e. in August, in spite of the confidence I had by this time acquired in his skill and knowledge of the West Coast, a sense of horror seized on me as I gazed upon the scene, and I said to the old coaster who then had charge of my education, "Good Heavens! what an awful accident. We've gone and picked up the Styx." He was evidently hurt and said, "Bonny was a nice place when you got used to it," and went on to discourse on the last epidemic here, when nine men out of the resident eleven died in about ten days from yellow fever. I went ashore that evening to have tea with Captain Boler, and was told many more details about this particular epidemic, to say nothing of other epidemics. In one which the captain experienced, at the


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/437

 make progress with as little delay as possible. Now foreign terms must necessarily be explained before they are understood, and, even when explained, are not properly understood, but are thought to have no meaning apart from their technical signification. In addition, they are difficult to remember. On the other hand, if the vernacular terms are used, it is only necessary to point out the object designated by each term. In this way we wish to remove all delays and difficulties from the path of this elementary instruction. (2) Besides this, we wish to cultivate and improve the vernacular languages, and this is to be one, not by imitating the French, who incorporate Greek and Latin words that the people cannot understand (for which practice Stevin blames them), but by expressing our meaning in terms which can be understood by everybody. Stevin gave the same advice to the Belgians (Geog. bk. i.), and carried it into effect in his work on mathematics.

13. But it may be objected that all languages are not rich enough to supply suitable equivalents for Greek and Latin terms; that even if this were done, the learned would not relinquish their use; and, lastly, that those boys who are going to learn Latin had better begin at this stage, and so avoid the necessity of learning fresh technical terms later on.

14. I reply: If any language be obscure, or insufficient to express necessary ideas, this is the fault, not of the language, but of those who use it. The Romans and Greeks had originally to form the words that are now in use, and these words seemed so obscure and so rude that their authors were uncertain if they could ever serve as a vehicle for thought. But now that they are universally accepted they prove sufficiently expressive. As an illustration of what I mean, take the terms “essence,” “substance,” “accident,” “quality,” “quantity,” etc. No language, therefore, need lack words unless men lack industry.

15. As for the second objection; let the learned retain their own terms. We are now seeking a way by which the


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/438

 common people may be led to understand and take an interest in the liberal arts and sciences; and with this end in view we must not speak in a language that is foreign to them, and that is in itself artificial.

16. And lastly, those boys who have to learn Latin later on will find it no disadvantage to know the technical terms in their mother-tongue, nor will it prove any hindrance to them that they praised God in their own language before doing so in Latin.

17. The third requisite is an easy method of introducing these books to the young, and of this we will give a brief sketch in the following rules:

(i) The class lessons should not exceed four daily, of which two should be before mid-day, and two after. The remaining hours of the day may profitably be spent in domestic work (especially among the poor), or in some form of recreation.

(ii) The morning should be devoted to the exercise of the intellect and the memory, the afternoon to that of the hand and the voice.

(iii) In the morning the master shall read over the lesson for the hour several times, while the whole class attends, and shall explain anything that needs explanation in simple language, and in such a way that it cannot but be understood. He shall then bid the boys read it in turn, and while one reads it in a clear voice the rest should attend and follow in their books. If this be continued for half an hour, or longer, the clever boys and at last even the stupid ones will try to repeat by heart what they have just read. For the tasks that are set must be short; not too long for an hour’s lesson, or too hard for the boys to understand.

(iv) No fresh work should be done in the afternoon, but the lessons done in the morning should be repeated. The pupils should transcribe portions of their printed books, and should compete with one another to see who can best remember the morning’s lesson, or who is most proficient in writing, in singing, or in counting.


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/439

 18. Not without reason do we recommend that all the pupils copy their printed books as neatly as they can. (1) The manual exercise of copying will help to impress on their minds the matter copied. (2) If the practice be made a daily one, it will teach them to write well, quickly, and accurately, and this will be of the greatest use in the further prosecution of their studies, and in conducting the affairs of life. (3) This will be the surest proof to parents that their children are not wasting their time at school, and will enable them to judge how much progress they are making.

19. We have no space to go into further particulars at present, and will only touch on one more point. If any boys are to learn foreign languages, they should learn them now, at about the age of ten, eleven, or twelve, that is to say, between the Vernacular-School and the Latin-School. The best way is to send them to the place where the language that they wish to learn is spoken, and in the new language to make them read, write, and learn the class-books of the Vernacular-School (the subject-matter of which is already familiar to them).


text:
Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/491

 busts. No. 1, a bust of Trajan, is highly natural and fine. No. 6, of Marcus Aurelius, is full of a calm and dignified repose. No. 7, of Lucius Verus, is a splendid head—blending together the coxcomb and the patrician in a very edifying manner.

The, which is a small square one, to the right of the last, may be passed over without pointing out any particular objects for notice; but not without mentioning that nearly all its contents will repay a careful examination, to those who would improve their general taste and knowledge in regard to objects of this nature. It contains nearly fifty different objects, all connected with the Roman rites of sepulture—many of which are extremely beautiful as works of art.

The is a continuation of the long gallery, and contains a vast number of admirable works, in nearly all the different departments of sculpture. Our glance at them must be very hasty; for we are approaching the end of our limits. From 1 to 14 consist of a series of reliefs, chiefly taken from the fronts of sarcophagi, and in many of which, the figures are nearly detached from the back ground. No. 12 may be pointed out as perhaps the most rich, spirited, and full of life. It represents a bacchanalian procession. No. 24 is a statue of a satyr, highly animated and characteristic. No. 31 is a magnificent head, probably representing one of the Homeric heroes. It is instinct with spirit and fire, and displays the hand of high genius in every touch of it. No. 52 is a charming statue of Libera—very perfect in its preservation. No. 57,—a small statue of a fisherman, was no doubt employed as a votive offering, by one of the common people;—its exquisite workmanship becomes, therefore, doubly interesting, when viewed as an illustration of the state in which art must then have been. Nos. 61 and 65 are two admirable busts—one of Augustus, and the other of Caracalla. No. 64 is an object of great interest and curiosity, supposing the conjecture concerning it be true. It represents part of a votive altar, on which is an inscription, praying for the safe return of Septimius Severus and his family from some expedition. There is, however, a part of the inscription erased; and it is supposed that this was the part which contained the name of Geta—which name the Emperor Caracalla had, by an express edict, ordered to be erased from every inscription throughout the Roman Empire. No. 68 is a group of two greyhounds, which is worthy of notice, on account of the extraordinary air of nature whith it displays. No. 72 is the small statue of Cupid, which was alluded to in connexion with the larger, noticed in the commencement of this paper. It is not executed in the very first style; but is still very charming and natural. Nos. 71. and 74 are two very small statues, one representing a Muse, and the other Hercules—each seated on a rock. They are pointed out for the purpose of shewing, that mere size has essentially very little to do with either increasing or diminishing grandeur and dignity of effect. In looking at these noble figures, we are never for a moment reminded, except by actual comparison, that they are but a few inches high. The same remarks apply to No. 95—a small statue of Jupiter.

The is a small square one, containing little or nothing that demands particular mention; and the eighth and ninth are filled with the noble and unrivalled collection of Egyptian antiquities. The


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/440

1. this school the pupils should learn four languages and acquire an encyclopædic knowledge of the arts. Those youths who have completed its whole curriculum should have had a training as:

(i) Grammarians, who are well versed in Latin and in their mother-tongue, and have a sufficient acquaintance with Greek and Hebrew.

(ii) Dialecticians, who are well skilled in making definitions, in drawing distinctions, in arguing a point, and in solving hard questions.

(iii) Rhetoricians or orators, who can talk well on any given subject.

(iv) Arithmeticians, and (v) geometricians; both on account of the use of these sciences in daily life, and because they sharpen the intellect more than anything else.

(vi) Musicians, both practical and theoretical.

(vii) Astronomers, who have, at any rate, mastered the rudiments, such as the knowledge of the heavenly bodies, and the calculation of their movements, since without this science it is impossible to understand not only physics but also geography and a great part of history.

2. The above are commonly known as the seven liberal arts, a knowledge of which is demanded from a doctor of philosophy. But our pupils must aim higher than this, and in addition must be:


text:
Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/314

 Tis well known, that in the highlands, it was, in former times, accounted not only lawful, but honourable, among hostile tribes, to commit depredations on one another; and these habits of the age were perhaps strengthened in this district, by the circumstances which have been mentioned. It bordered on a country, the inhabitants of which, while they were richer, were less warlike than they, and widely differenced by language and manners."— Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire. Edin. 1806, p. 97.

The reader will therefore be pleased to remember, that the thethe [sic] scene of this poem is laid in a time

If force of evidence could authorise us to believe facts inconistentinconsistent [sic] with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favour of the existence of the Second-Sight. It is called in Gaelic Taishitaraugh, from Taish, an unreal or shadowy appearance; and those possessed of the faculty are called Taishatrin, which may be aptly translated visionaries. Martin, a steady believer in the second-sight, gives the following account of it:

"The second-sight is a singular faculty of seeing an otherwise


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/441

 (viii) Physicists, who know the composition of the earth, the force of the elements, the different species of animals, the powers of plants and of minerals, and the structure of the human body, and who, besides knowing these things, can apply them to the various uses of life. Under this head is thus comprised a part of medicine, of agriculture, and of other mechanical arts.

(ix) Geographers, who are well acquainted with the external features of the earth, and know the seas, the islands that are in them, the rivers, and the various kingdoms.

(x) Chronologers, who can fix periods of time, and trace the course of the centuries from the beginning of the world.

(xi) Historians, who possess a fair knowledge of the history of the human race, of the chief empires, and of the Church, and who know the various customs and fortunes of races and of men.

(xii) Moralists, who can draw fine distinctions between the various kinds of virtue and of vice, and who can follow the one and avoid the other. This knowledge they should possess both in its general form and in its special application to the life of the family, of the state, and of the Church.

(xiii) Finally, we wish them to be theologians, who, besides understanding the principles of their faith, can also prove them from the Scriptures.

3. When this course is finished, the youths, even if they have not a perfect knowledge of all these subjects (indeed at their age perfection is impossible, since experience is necessary to complete the theoretical knowledge that they have acquired, and the sea of learning cannot be exhausted in six years), should, at any rate, have laid a solid foundation for any more advanced instruction that they may receive in the future.

4. For the curriculum of six years, six distinct classes will be necessary, the names of which, starting from the lowest, might be as follows:—

The Grammar class.

The Natural Philosophy class.

The Mathematical class.


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/128

 fourth funeral, two youngsters (junior clerks of the deceased) from drink brought on by fright, fell into the grave before the coffin, which got lowered on to them, and all three had to be hauled out again. "Barely necessary though, was it?" said another member of the party, "for those two had to have a grave of their own before next sundown." And the general consensus of opinion was that one of these periodic epidemics was "just about due now." Next to the scenery of "a River," commend me for cheerfulness to the local conversation of its mangrove-swamp region; and every truly important West African river has its mangrove-swamp belt, which extends inland as far as the tide waters make it brackish, and which has a depth and extent from the banks depending on the configuration of the country. Above this belt comes uniformly a region of high forest, having towards the river frontage clay cliffs, sometimes high, as in the case of the Old Calabar at Adiabo, more frequently dwarf cliffs, as in the Forcados up at Warree, and in the Ogowé,—for a stretch through Kama country. After the clay cliffs region you come to a region of rapids, caused by the river cutting its way through a mountain range; such ranges are the Pallaballa, causing the Livingstone rapids of the Congo; the Sierra del Cristal, those of the Ogowé, and many lesser rivers; the Rumby and Omon ranges, those of the Old Calabar and Cross Rivers.

Naturally in different parts these separate regions vary in size. The mangrove-swamp may be only a fringe at the mouth of the river, or it may cover hundreds of square miles. The clay cliffs may extend for only a mile or so along the bank, or they may, as on the Ogowé, extend for 130. And so it is also with the rapids: in some rivers, for instance the Cameroons, there are only a few miles of them, in others there are many miles; in the Ogowé there are as many as 500; and these rapids may be close to the river mouth, as in most of the Gold Coast rivers, save the Ancobra and the Volta; or they may be far in the interior, as in the Cross River, where they commence at about 200 miles; and on the Ogowé, where they commence at about 208 miles from the sea coast; this depends on the nearness or remoteness from the


text:
Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/315

 invisible object, without any previous means used by the person that uses it for that end; the vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that they neither see, nor think of any thing else, except the vision, as long as it continues; and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to the object which was represented to them.

"At the sight of a vision, the eye-lids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue staring until the object vanish. This is obvious to others who are by, when the persons happen to see a vision, and occurred more than once to my own observation, and to others that were with me.

"There is one in Skie, of whom his acquaintance observed, that when he sees a vision, the inner part of his eye-lids turns far upwards, that after the object disappears, he must draw them down with his fingers, and sometimes employs others to draw them down, which he finds to be the much easier way.

"This faculty of the second-sight does not lineally descend in a family, as some imagine, for I know several parents who are endowed with it, but their children not, and vice versa: neither is it acquired by any previous compact. And, after a strict enquiry, I could never learn that this faculty was communicable any way whatsoever.

"The seer knows neither the object, time, nor place of a vision, before it appears; and the same object is often seen by different persons, living at a considerable distance from one another. The true way of judging as to the time and circumstance of an object, is by observation; for several persons of


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/442

 (iv) The Ethics class.

The Dialectic class.

(vi) The Rhetoric class.

5. I presume that no one can raise any objection to my placing grammar first, since it is the key of all knowledge; but to those who are always guided by custom it may seem strange that I have placed real studies before dialectic and ethics. No other arrangement, however, is possible. It has already been shown that the study of facts must precede that of their combinations, that matter logically precedes its form, that this is the only method by which sure and rapid progress can be made, and that we must therefore learn our facts by observation before we can either pass a sound judgment on them, or enunciate them in well-turned phrases. A man may have the whole apparatus of logic and of eloquence at his fingers’ ends, but of what value can his investigation or his proof be, if he be ignorant of the objects with which he is dealing? It is as impossible to talk sensibly about matters with which we are not acquainted as it is for a virgin to bring forth a child. Things exist in themselves, and are quite independent of their relation to thought and to speech. But thought and speech have no meaning apart from things, and depend entirely upon them. Unless it refers to definite objects, speech is nothing but sound without sense, and it is therefore absolutely necessary to give our pupils a thorough preliminary training in real studies.

6. Though many have held the contrary opinion, it has been conclusively shown by learned writers that the study of natural philosophy should precede that of ethics.

Lipsius, in his Physiology, bk. i. chap. i., writes as follows:—

“I am distinctly in agreement with the distinguished authorities who hold that natural philosophy should come first. Its study is productive of great pleasure, stimulates and retains the attention, and forms a suitable introduction to ethics.”

7. It is open to argument whether the Mathematical


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/443

 class should or should not precede the Natural Philosophy class. It was with the study of mathematics that the ancients commenced the investigation of nature, for which reason they gave them the name of “The Sciences”; while Plato forbade those who were ignorant of geometry to enter his Academy. Their reasons for holding this view are easy to understand, since the sciences that deal with number and quantity make a special appeal to the senses, and are therefore easy to grasp; besides, they make a powerful impression on the imagination, and thus prepare the mind for studies of a more abstract nature.

8. All this is very true, but we have some other considerations to take into account: (1) In the Vernacular-School we advised the education of the senses, and the development of the mind through their means, and as our pupils have by this time been through a course of arithmetic they can scarcely be considered quite ignorant of mathematics. (2) Our method advances step by step. Before proceeding to complex problems of magnitude, we should deal with bodies in the concrete, and thus prepare our minds to grasp more abstract notions. (3) The curriculum of the Mathematical class, as drawn up by us, embodies most of the arts, and these cannot be thoroughly mastered without some knowledge of natural philosophy. But indeed, if others suggest a different order, and justify their preference by theoretical or practical reasons, I have no wish to gainsay them. My own view is opposed to theirs, and I have given my reasons for it.

9. As soon as a fair knowledge of Latin has been acquired (by the aid of the Vestibulum and the Janua, which are to be used in the first class), the pupils should be instructed in the science of first principles, commonly called metaphysics (though in my opinion it should be called prophysics or hypophysics, that is to say, ante-natural or sub-natural). For this science embraces the primary and the most important principles of existence, dealing with the essential hypotheses on which all things depend, their attributes, and their logical differences; and


text:
Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/316

 judgment, without this faculty, are more capable to judge of the design of a vision, than a novice that is a seer. If an object appear in the day or night, it will come to pass sooner or later accordingly.

"If an object is seen early in the morning (which is not frequent,) it will be accomplished in a few hours afterwards. If at noon, it will commonly be accomplished that very day. If in the evening, perhaps that night; if after candles be lighted, it will be accomplished that night: the later always in accomplishment, by weeks, months, and sometimes years, according to the time of night the vision is seen.

"When a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostick of death: the time is judged according to the height of it about the person; for if it is seen above the middle, death is not to be expected for the space of a year, and perhaps some months longer; and as it is frequently seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand within a few days, if not hours, as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shewn me, when the persons of whom the observations were then made, enjoyed perfect health.

"One instance was lately foretold by a seer that was a novice, concerning the death of one of my acquaintance; this was communicated to a few only, and with great confidence: I being one of the number, did not in the least regard it, until the death of the person, about the time foretold, did confirm me of the certainty of the prediction. The novice mentioned above, is now a skilfull seer, as appears from many late instan-


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/444

 includes the most general definitions, axioms, and laws of nature. When these are known (and by my method the task is an easy one), it will be possible to learn particulars and details with little effort, since, in a way, they will already be familiar, and nothing will be necessary but the application of general principles to particular instances. Immediately after this grounding in first principles, which should not occupy more than three months (for they will be speedily learned, being principles of pure reason and easily grasped by the mind), we may proceed to deal with the visible universe, that the marvels of nature (already set forth in the prophysic) may be demonstrated more and more clearly by particular examples. This will be supplied by the Natural Philosophy class.

10. From the essential nature of things we proceed to the more exact investigation of their accidental properties, and this we call the Mathematical class.

11. The pupils must next investigate man himself, viewed as a free agent and as the lord of creation. They must learn to notice what things are in our power, what are not, and how everything must submit to the inflexible laws of the universe.

This they will learn in the fourth year, in the Ethics class. But this must not consist of an historical course or of a mere statement of facts, as in the Vernacular-School. The reasons which underlie each fact must be given, that the pupils may acquire the habit of concentrating their attention on cause and effect. All controversial matter, however, must be carefully excluded from these first four classes, since we wish this to be reserved for the fifth class that follows.

12. In the Dialectic class, after a brief training in the laws of reasoning, the pupils should go over the whole field of natural philosophy, mathematics, and ethics, and carefully investigate any weighty points that are usually discussed by learned men. This gives an opportunity for explaining the cause and the nature of the controversy, for distinguishing between the thesis and the antithesis,


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/445

 and for showing by what arguments, real or plausible, either may be controverted. The mistakes of the opposite side should then be exposed, and the cause of error and the fallacy of the arguments employed should be clearly shown; while, if there be an element of truth on both sides, the conflicting arguments may be reconciled. The utility of this process will be great, as it will not only comprise the recapitulation of facts already known, and illustrate those that are less familiar, but will at the same time teach the art of reasoning, of investigating what is unknown, and explaining what is obscure, of simplifying ambiguity, limiting statements that are too general, defending the truth with the weapons of truth, unmasking falsehood, and setting in order facts that are confused.

13. Last of all comes the Rhetoric class. In this the pupils should be taught to make an easy and profitable use of all that they have hitherto learned, and here it will be seen that they have learned something and have not spent their time in vain. For, in accordance with the saying of Socrates, “Speak, that I may see your character,” we must train them to speak well, now that we have taught them to think accurately.

14. Therefore, after a preliminary training in the shortest and simplest rules of oratory, they should proceed to put these into practice by imitating the best masters. They should, however, not confine themselves to the subjects that they have already studied, but should traverse the whole field of truth, existence, of human life, and of divine wisdom; that if they know anything which is true, good, pleasant, or useful they may be able to express it in suitable language, or, if necessary, to hold a brief for it. For this purpose they will at this stage be supplied with a mental furniture that is by no means to be despised, namely, a varied acquaintance with the facts of nature, and a good stock of words, of phrases, and of historical knowledge.

15. But of this we can speak more fully elsewhere; that is to say, if it be necessary, since the details will work


text:
Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/317

 ces; he lives in the parish of St Mary's, the most northern in Skie.

"If a woman is seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried, at the time of the apparition.

"If two or three women are seen at once near a man's left hand, she that is next him will undoubtedly be his wife first, and so on, whether all three, or the man, be single or married at the time of the vision or not; of which there are several late instances among those of my acquaintance. It is an ordinary thing for them to see a man that is to come to the house shortly after; and if he is not of the seer's acquaintance, yet he gives such a lively description of his stature, complexion, habit, &c. that upon his arrival he answers the character given him in all respects.

"If the person so appearing be one of the seer's acquaintance, he will tell his name, as well as other particulars; and he can tell by his countenance whether he comes in a good or bad humour.

"I have been seen thus myself by seers of both sexes, at some hundred miles distance; some that saw me in this manner had never seen me personally, and it happened according to their visions, without any previous design of mine to go to those places, my coming there being purely accidental.

"It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and trees in places void of all three; and this in progress of time uses to be accomplished: as at Mogshot, in the Isle of Skie, where


text:
Page:No More Parades (Albert & Charles Boni).djvu/143

 get him a job as divisional officer And he imagined Valentine's despair if she heard that he—Tietjens had moved heaven and earth to get out of it. He saw her lower lip quivering and the tears in her eyes But he probably had got that from some novel, because he had never seen her lower lip quiver. He had seen tears in her eyes!

He hurried back to his lines to take his orderly room. In the long hut McKechnie was taking that miniature court of drunks and defaulters for him and, just as Tietjens reached it, he was taking the case of Girtin and two other Canadian privates The case of Girtin interested him, and when McKechnie slid out of his seat Tietjens occupied it. The prisoners were only just being marched in by a Sergeant Davis, an admirable N.C.O. whose rifle appeared to be part of his rigid body and who executed an amazing number of stamps in seriously turning in front of the C.O.'s table. It gave the impression of an Indian war dance

Tietjens glanced at the charge sheet, which was marked as coming from the Provost-Marshal's Office. Instead of the charge of absence from draft he read that of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline in that The charge was written in a very illiterate hand; an immense beery lance-corporal of Garrison Military Police, with a red hat-band, attended to give evidence It was a tenuous and disagreeable affair. Girtin had not gone absent, so Tietjens had to revise his views of the respectable. At any rate of the respectable Colonial private soldier with mother complete. For there really had been a mother, and Girtin had been seeing her into the last tram down into the town. A frail old lady. Apparently, trying to annoy the Canadian, the beery lance


text:
Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/446

 themselves out in practice. We will only touch on one point further. An acquaintance with history is the most important element in a man’s education, and is, as it were, the eye of his whole life. This subject, therefore, should be taught in each of the six classes, that our pupils may be ignorant of no event which has happened from ancient times to the present day; but its study must be arranged in such a way that it lighten their work instead of increasing it, and serve a relaxation after their severer labours.

16. Our idea is that each class should have its own hand-book, dealing with some special branch of history; for example:

17. As regards the special method to be employed, I will make only one remark. The four hours of daily class instruction should be arranged as follows: the two morning hours should be devoted (as soon as morning prayer has been held) to the science or the art that forms the special subject of the class. Of the afternoon hours the first should be given to history, and, in the second, the pupils should be made to exercise style, declamation, and the use of their hands, in accordance with the requirements of the class.


text: The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/The Great Didactic/Chapter 28


text: The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/The Great Didactic/Chapter 29


text: The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/The Great Didactic/Chapter 30


text:
Page:No More Parades (Albert & Charles Boni).djvu/144

 corporal of the Garrison Military Police had hustled the mother. Girtin had remonstrated; very moderately, he said. The lance-corporal had shouted at him. Two other Canadians returning to camp had intervened and two more police. The police had called the Canadians conscripts, which was almost more than the Canadians could stand, they being voluntarily enlisted 1914 or 1915 men. The police—it was an old trick-had kept the men talking until two minutes after the last post had sounded and then had run them in for being absent off pass—and for disrespect to their red hat-bands.

Tietjens, with a carefully measured fury, first cross-examined and then damned the police witness to hell. Then he marked the charge sheets with the words "Case explained," and told the Canadians to go and get ready for his parade. It meant he was aware a frightful row with the provost-marshal, who was a port-winey old general called O'Hara and loved his police as if they had been ewe-lambs.

He took his parade, the Canadian troops looking like real soldiers in the sunlight, went round his lines with the new Canadian sergeant-major, who had his appointment, thank goodness, from his own authorities; wrote a report on the extreme undesirability of lecturing his men on the causes of the war, since his men were either graduates of one or other Canadian university and thus knew twice as much about the causes of the war as any lecturer the civilian authorities could provide, or else they were half-breed Micamuc Indians, Esquimaux, Japanese, or Alaskan Russians, none of whom could understand any English lecturer He was aware that he would have to re-write his report so as to make it more respectful to the news-


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/129

 coast line of the mountain ranges which run down the west side of the continent; ranges (apparently of very different geological formations), which have no end of different names, but about which little is known in detail.

And now we will leave generalisations on West African rivers and go into particulars regarding one little known in England, and called by its owners, the French, the greatest strictly equatorial river in the world—the Ogowé.


text:
User talk:Jswap

PseudoSkull (talk) 23:25, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents
You mention that your work was in 2016. Was it published anywhere then ?

You show Reuben Thwaites as translator, but it seems to me that he was editor. -- Beardo (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Yes, I published it on Amazon in 2016. And you're right, he was the editor but I didn't see that as an option in the pregenerated header template.  Is "editor" a valid option? Jswap (talk) 15:38, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There is written that it was translated to modern English in 2016, so I am afraid that the translation is still copyrighted. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 16:29, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was me who did the translation. I am relinquishing the copyright. Jswap (talk) 16:32, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, editor is a permitted option. -- Beardo (talk) 17:33, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jswap


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/130

pause here to explain my reasons for giving extracts from my diary, being informed on excellent authority that publishing a diary is a form of literary crime. Such being the case I have to urge in extenuation of my committing it that—Firstly, I have not done it before, for so far I have given a sketchy résumé of many diaries kept by me while visiting the regions I have attempted to describe. Secondly, no one expects literature in a book of travel. Thirdly, there are things to be said in favour of the diary form, particularly when it is kept in a little known and wild region, for the reader gets therein notice of things that, although unimportant in themselves, yet go to make up the conditions of life under which men and things exist. The worst of it is these things are not often presented in their due and proper proportion in diaries. Many pages in my journals that I will spare you display this crime to perfection. For example: "Awful turn up with crocodile about ten—Paraffin good for over-oiled boots—Evil spirits crawl on ground, hence high lintel—Odeaka cheese is made thus:—" Then comes half a yard on Odeaka cheese making.

When a person is out travelling, intent mainly on geography, it is necessary, if he publishes his journals, that he should publish them in sequence. But I am not a geographer. I have to learn the geography of a region I go into in great detail, so as to get about; but my means of learning it are not the


text:
Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/335

Rh cry of grief that it seemed as if the day of judgment had come.' Many invoked their most venerated huaca, and cried out:

Even the Spaniards were horrified, for all knew that the young man was innocent, and had committed no offence.

Things being in this state, all the chief dignitaries of the Church hurried to the Viceroy. They were the Bishop of Popayan, the Provincials of all the religious orders, and the Kector of the Jesuits. They went down on their knees and entreated the ruthless Toledo to show mercy and spare the life of the Inca. They urged that he should be sent to Spain to be judged by the King in person. But no prayers could prevail with the obstinate, pitiless man. Juan de Soto, chief officer of the court, was sent on horseback with a pole to clear the way, galloping furiously and riding down the people. He ordered the Inca's head to be cut off at once, in the name of the Viceroy.

Tupac Amaru was told that the time had come. He took one step forward and raised his right arm. Instantly there was profound silence. He then said in a loud voice:

title: Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/335


text:
Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/336

296

According to the picture by Huaman Poma, the Inca was then thrown on his back, his arms and legs were held by two men, and a third cut his throat. There was a great and bitter cry from the vast multitude. The head was cut off,and stuck on a pole. The Inca's body was carried to the house of his mother, the Queen Cusi Huarcay. All the bells in the city were tolled. Next day the body was interred in the high chapel of the cathedral, the service being performed by the chapter. Pontifical mass was said by the good Bishop of Popayan. Next day all the funeral honours were repeated, and the masses were sung with the organ.

The Inca's head remained on a pole in the great square. Mancio Serra de Leguisamo passed that night in a house to the right of the cathedral. He awoke just before dawn and thought he heard

title: Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/336


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/131

 scientific ones—Taking observations, Surveying, Fixing points, &c., &c. These things I know not how to do. I do not "take lunars"; and I always sympathise with a young friend of mine, who, on hearing that an official had got dreadfully ill from taking them, said, "What do those government men do it for? It kills them all off. I don't hold with knocking yourself to pieces with a lot of doctor's stuff." I certainly have a dim idea that lunars are not a sort of pill; but I quite agree that they were unwholesome things for a man to take in West Africa. This being my point of view regarding geography, I have relegated it to a separate chapter and have dealt similarly with trade and Fetish.

I have omitted all my bush journal. It is a journal of researches in Fetish and of life in the forest and in native villages, and I think I have a better chance of making this information understood by collecting it together; for the African forest is not a place you can, within reasonable limits, give an idea of by chronicling your own experience in it day by day. As a psychological study the carefully kept journal of a white man, from the first day he went away from his fellow whites and lived in the Great Forest Belt of Africa, among natives, who had not been in touch with white culture, would be an exceedingly interesting thing, provided it covered a considerable space of time; but to the general reader it would be hopelessly wearisome, and as for myself, I am not bent on discoursing on my psychological state, but on the state of things in general in West Africa.

On first entering the great grim twilight regions of the forest you hardly see anything but the vast column-like grey tree stems in their countless thousands around you, and the sparsely vegetated ground beneath. But day by day, as you get trained to your surroundings, you see more and more, and a whole world grows up gradually out of the gloom before your eyes. Snakes, beetles, bats and beasts, people the region that at first seemed lifeless.

It is the same with the better lit regions, where vegetation is many-formed and luxuriant. As you get used to it, what seemed at first to be an inextricable tangle ceases to be so. The separate sorts of plants stand out before your eyes with ever


text: Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait391903roya).pdf/14


text:
Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/82

 towns, covering in all a distance of some thousand miles; and one afternoon, at Munich, seeing a railway official, a cloak-room keeper, who they told us had lately lost his aunt, and who looked exceptionally dejected, I proposed to B. that we should take this man into a quiet corner, and both of us show him all our tickets at once—the whole twenty or twenty-four of them—and let him take them in his hand and look at them for as long as he liked. I wanted to comfort him.

B., however, advised against the suggestion. He said that even if it did not turn the man's head (and it was more than probable that it would), so much jealousy


text: Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar/The Witch


text: Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar/Mary and Netty


text: Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar/The Robbers


text:
Page:Weird Tales Volume 13 Number 1 (1929-01).djvu/51

HERE are two roads to Torkertown. One, the shorter and more direct route, leads across a barren upland moor, and the other, which is much longer, winds its tortuous way in and out among the hummocks and quagmires of the swamps, skirting the low hills to the east. It was a dangerous and tedious trail; so Solomon Kane halted in amazement when a breathless youth from the village he had just left, overtook him and implored him for God's sake to take the swamp road.

"The swamp road!" Kane stared at the boy.

He was a tall, gaunt man, was Solomon Kane, his darkly pallid face and deep brooding eyes made more somber by the drab Puritanical garb he affected.

"Yes, sir, 'tis far safer," the youngster answered his surprized exclamation.

"Then the moor road must be haunted by Satan himself, for your townsmen warned me against traversing the other."

"Because of the quagmires, sir, that you might not see in the dark. You had better return to the village and continue your journey in the morning, sir."

"Taking the swamp road?"

"Yes, sir."

Kane shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"The moon rises almost as soon as twilight dies. By its light I can reach Torkertown in a few hours, across the moor."


text: Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar/Ivashko and the Witch


text: Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar/Prince Kid-Skin


text: Template:SBE half-title

title: Template:SBE half-title


text:
Page:A History of American Anthropology.pdf/17

Rh It is possible that the leaven of religion was one of the greatest factors in this period. Even in early pre-Buddhist India we find the ancient sages in one such period of national activity crying out, "Srinvantu visve Amritasya putrah" "Hear ye all in the world oh ye children of immortality." The sense of a high mission, which is but the vague expression of the rapidly expanding soul of a people, a dynamic phase, cause peoples to burst their bonds. It is found later on rationalized by vested interests in such cants as Papal inheritance, Nordic superiority or the Hellenization of the earth, or the White Man's burden. But the unmistakable hiss of a new cultural compound in the making, is always heard.

When Boniface and other Christian missionaries were working on the Slav frontier humane Buddhist missionaries were carrying their Hindu-Buddhist religious culture to the furthest limits of the Japanese-Ainu frontier. It might seem at first that the objective pagan outlook of the Renaissance would result in the withering of missionary activities. But the Renaissance came to England in the chrysalis of the Reformation, burst into the beauties of Elizabethan literature and the intensities of a Puritan passion which could load the Mayflower with carriers of the torch of a new culture to come. An individual, as well as a group, first exhausts the well-tried behaviour patterns, and so we see the Roman Catholic Church astir, missionaries requisitioned and dragooned to convert the newfound heathen and bring them to the papal heritage. It was not merely the belief in the Kingdom of God on the earth (as the sincere Christian naturally expected when he thought of the whole world becoming Christian), but of a veritable earthly appendage to Popedom that colored the serious thinking of the time. This is nowhere so clearly brought out as in the memorable document of the Requisition drawn up in 1509 by Dr. Palacio Rubios, at the command of King Ferdinand—a precious document for all students of group motivation for all time. "...The Lord our God created the heaven and earth and one man and one woman. Of all


text:
Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/29

Rh nounced silence a fence about wisdom. But his disposition was resolute rather than severe. Of him the most romantic of love stories is told. He was a herdsman, and fell in love with his master's daughter, who endured poverty as his devoted wife, and was glorified in her husband's fame. But whatever contrast there may have been in the two characters, Akiba, like Jochanan, believed that a literature was worthless unless it expressed itself in the life of the scholar. He and his school held in low esteem the man who, though learned, led an evil life, but they took as their ideal the man whose moral excellence was more conspicuous than his learning. As R. Eleazar, the son of Azariah, said: “He whose knowledge is in excess of his good deeds is like a tree whose branches are many and its roots scanty: the wind comes, uproots, and overturns it. But he whose good deeds are more than his knowledge is like a tree with few branches but many roots, so that if all


text:
Oaths Act

 * Oaths Act 1775, by Parliament of Great Britain.
 * Oaths Act 1867 (Qld.)
 * Oaths Act 1900 (NSW)
 * Oaths Act 1936 (SA)
 * Oaths Act, 1969 (Act 44 of 1969), an Indian Act that consolidates the law on oaths.
 * Oaths Act 1978 (c. 60), an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidates the law on oaths.
 * Oaths Act 1936 (Tas.)

title: Oaths Act


text:
Template:SBE title/doc

This template is used to generate title pages for the Sacred Books of the East series.

Usage
Please see the TemplateData below for parameter information.

For series titles

 * (required)
 * (required)

For volume titles

 * (required)
 * (required),
 * (required)
 * (required)
 * (required)

{	"params": { "no_the": { "description": "Whether the small-capped 'THE' above the title should be hidden (suggested for volume titles). Any non-empty value will be true.", "type": "line", "autovalue": "yes", "suggested": true },		"title": { "description": "The title to show at the top (required for volume titles).", "type": "line", "default": "SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST", "suggested": true },		"subtitle1": { "description": "The first line of a subtitle, shown in small caps right below the title.", "type": "line" },		"subtitle2": { "description": "The second line of the subtitle, shown right below its first line.", "type": "content" },		"post_trans": { "description": "Some text to show after 'TRANSLATED' in the translation subtitle.", "example": "FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXTS", "type": "line" },		"trans1": { "description": "The first translator of this volume (required for volume titles).", "example": "JOHN SMITH", "type": "content", "suggested": true },		"trans2": { "description": "The second translator of this volume (required for volume titles).", "type": "content" },		"vol": { "description": "The volume number *in Arabic numerals* (required for series titles).", "example": "8", "type": "number", "suggested": true },		"part": { "description": "The volume's part number *in Arabic numerals*.", "type": "number" },		"sub_part": { "aliases": [ "sub_vol" ],			"description": "Text to show after the part and/or volume numbers (after part, if both present).", "type": "content" },		"ed": { "description": "Text to show after sub-part, detailing edition information.", "example": "Second Edition", "type": "content" },		"year": { "description": "The volume's publication year.", "example": "1897", "type": "number", "required": true },		"smaller_title": { "description": "Whether the title should be displayed in a slightly smaller size, useful when it is too long." }	},	"paramOrder": [ "title", "smaller_title", "no_the", "subtitle1", "subtitle2", "post_trans", "trans1", "trans2", "vol", "part", "sub_part", "ed", "year" ],	"format": "block" }

title: Template:SBE title/doc


text:
Page:The Innocents Abroad (1869).djvu/302

278 did pageants were exhibited here, in presence of the Emperor, the great ministers of State, the nobles, and vast audiences of citizens of smaller consequence. Gladiators fought with gladiators and at times with warrior prisoners from many a distant land. It was the theatre of Rome—of the world—and the man of fashion who could not let fall in a casual and unintentional manner something about “my private box at the Coliseum” could not move in the first circles. When the clothing-store merchant wished to consume the corner grocery man with envy, he bought secured seats in the front row and let the thing be known. When the irresistible dry goods clerk wished to blight and destroy, according to his native instinct, he got himself up regardless of expense and took some other fellow’s young lady to the Coliseum, and then accented the affront by cramming her with ice cream between the acts, or by approaching the cage and stirring up the martyrs with his whalebone cane for her edification. The Roman swell was in his true element only when he stood up against a pillar and fingered his moustache unconscious of the ladies; when he viewed the bloody combats through an opera-glass two inches long; when he excited the envy of provincials by criticisms which showed that he had been to the Coliseum many and many a time and was long ago over the novelty of it; when he turned away with a yawn at last and said,

“He a star! handles his sword like an apprentice brigand! he’ll do for the. country, may be, but he don’t answer for the metropolis!”

Glad was the contraband that had a seat in the pit at the Saturday matinee, and happy the Roman street-boy who ate his peanuts and guyed the gladiators from the dizzy gallery.


text:
Page:The Innocents Abroad (1869).djvu/303

Rh For me was reserved the high honor of discovering among the rubbish of the ruined Coliseum the only playbill of that establishment now extant. There was a suggestive smell of mint-drops about it still, a corner of it had evidently been chewed, and on the margin, in choice Latin, these words were written in a delicate female hand:

Ah, where is that lucky youth to-day, and where the little hand that wrote those dainty lines? Dust and ashes these seventeen hundred years!

Thus reads the bill:


text:
Page:The Innocents Abroad (1869).djvu/304

280

It was as singular as it was gratifying that I was also so fortunate as to find among the rubbish of the arena, a stained and mutilated copy of the Roman Daily Battle-Ax, containing a critique upon this very performance. It comes to hand too late by many centuries to rank as news, and therefore I translate and publish it simply to show how very little the general style and phraseology of dramatic criticism has altered in the ages that have dragged their slow length along since the carriers laid this one damp and fresh before their Roman patrons:

“.—Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, quite a respectable number of the rank and fashion of the city assembled last night to witness the debut upon metropolitan boards of the young tragedian


text: Page:A translation of all the Greek, Latin, Italian, and French quotations which occur in Blackstone's Commentaries.djvu/10


text:
Page:The Dog.djvu/2

and MINES. Fourth Edition, much enlarged, corrected or rewritten throughout, and brought down to the Present Time. With nearly 1,600 Woodcuts. 2 Vols. 80. price 60s.

CONTRAST of COLOURS, and their APPLICATIONS to the ARTS. Translated from the French by. Crown 8vo.

and ART. Second Edition, revised and corrected; with, and many Woodcuts. 8vo. price 60s.

Sir, F.R.S., F.S.A., President of the Royal Academy. 8vo. price 16s.

and VILLA ARCHITECTURE and FURNITURE. New Edition, with more than 2,000 Wood Engravings. 8v0. price 60s.

title: Page:The Dog.djvu/2


text:
Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/10

 ''music and finance are named over, the energy, ability and thrift of the race are dwelt upon, and everyone goes home feeling that a difficult place has been rather neatly negotiated. But nothing is changed thereby. The Jew is not changed. The Gentile is not changed. The Jew still remains the enigma of the world.''

Gentile sensitiveness on this point is best expressed by the desire for silence—“Why discuss it at all?” is the attitude. Such an attitude is itself a proof that there is a problem which we would evade if we could. "Why discuss it at all?” — the keen thinker clearly sees in the implications of such a question, the existence of a problem whose discussion or suppression will not always be within the choice of easy-going minds.

''Is there a Jewish Question in Russia? Unquestionably, in its most virulent form. Is it necessary to meet that Question in Russia? Undoubtedly, meet it from every angle along which light and healing may come.''

''Well, the percentage of the Jewish population of Russia is just one per cent more than it is in the United Sates. The majority of the Jews themselves are not less well-behaved in Russia than they are here; they lived under restrictions which do not exist here; yet in Russia their genius has enabled them to attain a degree of power which has completely baffled the Russian mind. Whether you go to Rumania, Russia, Austria or Germany, or anywhere else that the Jewish Question has come to the forefront as a vital issue, you wilt discover that the principal cause is the outworking of the Jewish genius to achieve the power of control.''

Here in the United States it is the fact of this remarkable minority—a sparse Jewish ingredient of three per cent in a nation of 110,000,000—attaining in 50 years a degree of control that would be impossible to a ten times larger group of any other race, that creates the Jewish Question here. Three per cent of any other people would scarcely occasion comment, because we could not

title: Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/10


text:
Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/11

 meet with a representative of them wherever we went in high places—in the innermost secrecy of the councils of the Big Four at Versailles; in the supreme court; in the councils of the White House: in the vast dispositions of world finance—wherever there is power to get or use. ''Yet we meet the Jew everywhere in the upper circles, literally everywhere there is power. He has the brains, the initiative, the penetrative vision which almost automatically projects him to the top, and as a consequence he is more marked than any other race.''

And that is where the Jewish Question begins. It begins in very simple terms—''How does the Jew so habitually and so resistlessly gravitate to the highest places? What puts him there? Why is he put there? What does he do there? What does the fact of his being there mean to the world?''

That is the Jewish Question in its origin. From these points it goes on to others, and whether the trend becomes pro-Jewish or anti-Semitic depends on the amount of prejudice brought to the inquiry, and whether it becomes pro-Humanity depends on the amount of insight and intelligence.

The use of the word Humanity in connection with the word Jew usually throws a side-meaning which may not be intended. ''In this connection it is usually understood that the humanity ought to be shown toward the Jew. There is just as great an obligation upon the Jew to show his humanity toward the whole race. The Jew has been too long accustomed to think of himself as exclusively the claimant on the humanitarianism of society; society has a large claim against him that he cease his exclusiveness, that he cease exploiting the world, that he cease making Jewish groups the end and all of his gains, and that he begin to fulfill, in a sense his exclusiveness has never yet enabled him to fulfill, the ancient prophecy that through him all the nations of the earth should be blessed.''

title: Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/11


text:
Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/12

 The Jew cannot go on forever filling the role of suppliant for the world's humanitarianism; ''he must himself show that quality to a society which seriously suspects his higher and more powerful groups of exploiting it with a pitiless rapacity which in its wide-flung and long drawn- out distress may be described as an economic program against a rather helpless humanity. For it is true that society is as helpless before the well-organized extortions of certain financial groups, as huddled groups of Russian Jews were helpless against the anti-Semitic mob. And as in Russia, so in America, it is the poor Jew who suffers for the delinquencies of the rich exploiter of his race.''

''This series of articles is already being met by an organized barrage by mail and wire and voice, every single item of which carries the wail of persecution. One would think that a heartless and horrible attack were being made on a most pitiable and helpless people—until one looks at the letterheads of the magnates who write, and at the financial ratings of those who protest and at the membership of the organizations whose responsible heads hysterically demand retraction. And always in the background there is the threat of boycott, a threat which has practicality sealed up the columns of every publication in America against even the mildest discussion of the Jewish Question.''

''The Jewish Question in America cannot be concealed forever by threats against publications, nor by the propagandist publication of matter extremely and invariably favorable to everything Jewish. It is here and it cannot be twisted into something else by the adroit use of propaganda, nor can it be forever silenced by threats. The Jews of the United States can best serve themselves and their fellow-Jews all over the world by letting drop their far too ready cry of "anti-Semitism,” by adopting a franker tone than that which befits a helpless victim, and by seeing what the Jewish Question is and how it behooves every Jew who loves his people to help solve it.''

title: Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/12


text:
Page:The Heart of England.djvu/173

front, a tall beechen hill closes up the gulf that runs out of the valley into the heart of the chalk down. The hill fills nearly half the sky, and just above it stands the white full moon, as one who looks over his lands. It warms the low, pale, curdled sky, but does not disturb the darkness of the beeches. All its light seems to fall and settle, as if it would dwell there for ever in the cherry trees on either hand. All are blossoming, and in their branches the nightingales sing out of the blossom, dispersing what ruins remain of the world of yesterday, and building rapidly those tall watch towers that last until dawn, which men may climb and from their summits see what may make them out of love with the earth.

The past day is long past, the day of fighting, digging, buying, selling, writing; and if there are still men on the earth they are all equal in the trances of passion or sleep; the day to come is not to be thought of. The moon reigns; you rule. The centuries are gathered up in your hand. You and the moonlight and the nightingale and the cherry blossom have your own way with them all night long. It is true then that Virgil, Catullus, Crashaw, Burton, Shelley… live still, and Horace, Racine, Bishop Beveridge… never lived. You exult

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/173


text:
Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/83

 would be created against him among the other railway people throughout Germany, that his life would be made a misery to him.

So we bought and showed him a first-class return to the next station but one; and it was quite pathetic to watch the poor fellow's face brighten up at the sight, and to see the faint smile creep back to the lips from which it had so long been absent.

But at times, one wishes that the German railway official would control his passion for tickets—or, at least, keep it within due bounds.

Even the most kindly-hearted man grows tired of showing his ticket all day and night long, and the middle of a wearisome journey is not the proper time for a man to come to the carriage-window and clamour to see your "billet."

You are weary and sleepy. You do not know where your ticket is. You are not quite sure that you have got a ticket; or if you ever had one, somebody has taken it away from you. You have put it by very carefully, thinking that it would not be wanted for hours, and have forgotten where.

There are eleven pockets in the suit you have on, and five more in the overcoat on the rack. Maybe, it is in one of those pockets. If not, it is possibly in one of the bags—somewhere, or in your pocket-book, if you only knew where that was, or your purse.

You begin a search. You stand up and shake yourself. Then you have another feel all over. You look round in the course of the proceedings; and the sight of the crowd of curious faces watching you, and of the man in uniform waiting with his eye fixed severely upon you, convey to you, in your then state of confusion, the


text:
Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/13

 There has been used in this series the term “International Jew". It is susceptible of two interpretations: one, the Jew wherever he may be: the other, the Jew who exercises international control. The real contention of the world is with the latter and his satellites, whether Jew or Gentile.

''Now, this international type of Jew, this grasper after world-control, this actual possessor and wielder of world-control is a very unfortunate connection for his race to have. The most unfortunate thing about the international Jew, from the standpoint of the ordinary Jew, is that the international type is also a Jew. And the significance of this is that the type does not grow anywhere else than on a Jewish stem. There is no other racial nor national type which puts forth this hind of person. It is not merely that there are a few Jews among international financial controllers: it is that these world controllers are exclusively Jews. That is the phenomenon which creates an unfortunate situation for those Jews who are not and never shall be world-controllers, who are the plain people of the Jewish race.'' If world-control were mixed, like the control, say, of the biscuit business, then the occasional Jews we might find in those higher financial altitudes would not constitute the problem at all; the problem would then be limited to the existence of world-control in the hands of a few men, of whatever race or lineage they might be. But since world-control is an ambition which has only been achieved by Jews, and not by any of the methods usually adopted by would-be world conquerors, it becomes inevitable that the question should center in that remarkable race.

''This brings another difficulty, in discussing this group of world-controllers under the name of Jews (and they are Jews). it is not always possible to stop and distinguish the group of Jews that is meant. The candid reader can usually determine that, but the Jew who is in a state of mind to be injured is sometimes pained by reading as a charge against himself what was intended for the upper''

title: Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/13


text:
Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/84

 momentary idea that this is a police-court scene, and that if the ticket is found upon you, you will probably get five years.

Upon this you vehemently protest your innocence.

"I tell you I haven't got it!" you exclaim;—"never seen the gentleman's ticket. You let me go! I"

Here the surprise of your fellow-passengers recalls you to yourself, and you proceed on your exploration. You overhaul the bags, turning everything out on to the floor, muttering curses on the whole railway system of Germany as you do so. Then you feel in your boots. You make everybody near you stand up to see if they are sitting upon it, and you go down on your knees and grovel for it under the seat.

"You didn't throw it out of the window with your sandwiches, did you?" asks your friend.

"No! Do you think I'm a fool?" you answer, irritably. "What should I want to do that for?"

On going systematically over yourself for about the twentieth time, you discover it in your waistcoat pocket, and for the next half-hour you sit and wonder how you came to miss it on the previous nineteen occasions. Meanwhile, during this trying scene, the conduct of the guard has certainly not tended to allay your anxiety and nervousness. All the time that you have been looking for your ticket, he has been doing silly tricks on the step outside, imperilling his life by every means that experience and ingenuity can suggest.

The train is going at the rate of thirty miles an hour, the express speed in Germany, and a bridge comes in sight crossing over the line. On seeing this bridge, the guard, holding on by the window, leans his body as far back as ever it will go. You look at him, and then at the


text:
Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/85

 rapidly-nearing bridge, and calculate that the arch will just take his head off without injuring any other part of him whatever, and you wonder whether the head will be jerked into the carriage or will fall outside.

When he is three inches off the bridge, he pulls himself up straight, and the brickwork, as the train dashes through, kills a fly that was trespassing on the upper part of his right ear.

Then, when the bridge is passed, and the train is skirting the very edge of a precipice, so that a stone dropped just outside the window would tumble straight down 300 feet, he suddenly lets go, and, balancing himself on the footboard without holding on to anything, commences to dance a sort of Teutonic cellar flap, and to warm his body by flinging his arms about in the manner of cabmen on a cold day.

The first essential to comfortable railway travelling in Germany is to make up your mind not to care a rap whether the guard gets killed in the course of the journey or not. Any tender feeling towards the guard makes railway travelling in the Fatherland a simple torture.

At five a.m. (how fair and sweet and fresh the earth looks in the early morning! Those lazy people who lie in bed till eight or nine miss half the beauty of the day, if they but knew it. It is only we who rise early that really


text:
Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/86

 enjoy Nature properly) I gave up trying to get to sleep, and made my way to the dressing-room at the end of the car, and had a wash.

It is difficult to wash in these little places, because the cars shake so; and when you have got both your hands and half your head in the basin, and are unable to protect yourself, the sides of the room, and the water-tap and the soap-dish, and other cowardly things, take a mean advantage of your helplessness to punch you as hard as ever they can; and when you back away from these, the door swings open and slaps you from behind.

I succeeded, however, in getting myself fairly wet all over, even if I did nothing else, and then I looked about for a towel. Of course, there was no towel. That is the trick. The idea of the railway authorities is to lure the passenger, by providing him with soap and water and a basin, into getting himself thoroughly soaked, and then to let it dawn upon him that there is no towel. That is their notion of fun!

I thought of the handkerchiefs in my bag, but to get to them I should have to pass compartments containing ladies, and I was only in early morning dress.

So I had to wipe myself with a newspaper which I happened to have in my pocket, and a more unsatisfactory thing to dry oneself upon I cannot conceive.

I woke up B. when I got back to the carriage, and persuaded him to go and have a wash; and in listening to the distant sound of his remarks when he likewise discovered that there was no towel, the recollection of my own discomfiture passed gently away.

Ah! how true it is, as good people tell us, that in thinking of the sorrows of others, we learn to forget our own!


text:
Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/87

 For fifty miles before one reaches Munich, the land is flat, stale, and apparently very unprofitable, and there is little to interest the looker-out. He sits straining his eyes towards the horizon, eagerly longing for some sign of the city to come in sight.

It lies very low, however, and does all it can to escape observation; and it is not until he is almost within its streets that he discovers it.


text:
Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/14

 ''group. “Then why not discuss the upper group as financiers and not as Jews.''’’ may be asked. Because they are Jews. It is not to the point to insist that in any list of rich men there are more Gentiles than Jews; we are not talking about merely rich men who have, many of them, gained their riches by serving a System, we are talking about those who Control—and it is perfectly apparent that merely to be rich is not to control. The world-controlling Jew has riches, but he also has something much more powerful than that.''

''The international Jew, as already defined, rules not because he is rich, but because in a most marked degree he possesses the commercial and masterful genius of his race, and avails himself of a racial loyalty and solidarity the like of which exists in no other human group. In other words, transfer to-day the world-control of the international Jew to the hands of the highest commercially talented group of Gentiles, and the whole fabric of world- control would eventually fall to pieces, because the Gentile lacks a certain quality, be it human or divine, be it natural or acquired, that the Jew possesses.''

This, of course, the modern Jew denies. There is a new position taken by the modernists among the Jews which constitutes a denial that the Jew differs from any other man except in the matter of religion. "Jew’' they say is not a racial designation, but a religious designation like “Episcopalian,” “Catholic,” “Presbyterian.” This is the argument used in newspaper offices in the Jews’ protests against giving the Jewish designation to those of their people who are implicated in crime—"You don’t give the religious classifications of other people who are arrested,” the editor is told, “why should you do it with Jews?” The appeal to religious tolerance always wins, and is sometimes useful in diverting attention from other things.

Well, if the Jews are only religiously differentiated from the rest of the- world, the phenomenon grows

title: Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/14


text:
Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/15

 ''stranger still. For the rest of the world is interested less m the Jew's religion than in anything else that concerns him. There is really nothing in his religion to differentiate the Jew from the rest of mankind, as far as the moral content of that religion is concerned, and if there were he would have overcome that by the fact that his Jewish religion supplies the moral structure for both of the other great religions. Moreover, it is stated that there are among English speaking nations, 2,000,000 Jews who acknowledge their race and not their religion, while 1,000,000 are classed as agnostic—are these any less Jews than the others?'' The world does not think so. The authoritative students of human differences do not think so. An Irishman who grows indifferent to the Church is still an Irishman, and it would seem to be equally true that a Jew who grows indifferent to the Synagogue is still a Jew. He at least feels that he is, and so does the non-Jew.

A still more serious challenge would arise if this contention of the modernists were true, for it would necessitate the explanation of these world-controlling Jews by their religion. We should have to say, “They excel through their religion,” and then the problem would turn on the religion whose practice should bring such power and prosperity to its devotees. But another fact would intervene, namely, that these world-controlling Jews are not notably religious; and still another fact would hammer for recognition, namely, the most devout believers and most obedient followers of the Jewish religion are the poorest among the Jews. If you want Jewish orthodoxy, the bracing morality of the Old Testament, you will find it, not among the successful Jews, who have Unitarianized their religion to the same extend that the Unitarians have Judaized their Christianity, but among the poor in the side streets who still sacrifice the Saturday business for their Sabbath keeping. Certainly their religion has not given them world-control; instead, they have

title: Page:The Protocols of Zion.djvu/15


text:
Page:The Heart of England.djvu/174

 because you are alive and your spirit possesses this broad, domed earth. Poor thing as you are, you have somehow gained a power of expression like the nightingale's, a pure translucency like the petals of the flowers; and as never before to man or woman you open your eyes widely and frankly, even the limbs move with the carelessness of the animals, the features lose the rigidity that comes of compromise and suppression.

Walking slowly thus, with a bowed head, you find an image of yourself and the universe in a shallow pool among the trees. The pool is your own mind. The flowers at its edge—hyacinth, primrose, marsh-marigold, and all the trees and their foliage—are the intimate and permanent companions of your life, and they are clearly mirrored in the water. An oak draws a long, snaky shadow from side to side, with the head and neck of a sitting dove among the leaves. And there, too, are the stars and the moon, brought down into that homely company of trees and flowers by the shining water, and preserved there in strangely woven patterns; just as in your mind you mingle visions of the world, the past, the imaginary, with your own domestic surroundings and acts, and a changing mood, like a pufF of wind across the pool, erases them. How sovereign and proud your own form plunged among these mirrored stars and leaves! On such a night an uncourageous lover, who sat at the edge with his mistress, was lured to a strange boldness by long gazing at the two blissful figures down there among the clouds. "See how fair they are," he said, "and how happy and close. Let us make them kiss." And the shadows kissed in the bosom of the pool.

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/174


text: The Heart of England/Chapter 30

title: The Heart of England/Chapter 30


text:
Page:The Heart of England.djvu/194

this beechen hill I can see into and across a long pastoral valley at my feet; its gentle sides running east and west are clothed in wood, and at the western end, where the valley leads straight out into the western sky, a stone city lies. Beyond this valley to the south are the misty, wooded ridges that hint at other valleys. The sunset light has made the landscape immense, but with the help of autumn it has made it simple too; and the sound of bells in the city seems to have created it, rounded and mellow in outline and hue. The little rounds of hedge-tops and knolls in the meadows and gorse in the higher slopes harmonise and run into the larger rounds of the single oaks in the middle distance, and the still larger rounds of the hills and their cloudy woods, and the clouds above them. A hawk in the air might seem to be carving the outlines of some perfect palm tree as he flies. The white steam also of a slow train far away bubbles up in the moist and gentle air and hangs there long in delicately changing and merging mounds that mock the clouds and woods. The amber wheat stacks are of the same family of form, lying in a half circle at one side of a hunched farmhouse that lifts up a dome of mossy thatch,—near it a garden of

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/194


text: Index:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu


text:
Page:The Heart of England.djvu/195

 shadowed wallflower, snapdragon, roses, in clouds beyond clouds, with a burning edge of hollyhock, sunflower, red-hot poker and chrysanthemum.

The sound of the city bells continues to overflow in bubbles from the valley, up and up, to the round, golden clouds. As if filled with the sound, the city smoke ascends and takes on the colours of the sunset.

The sun is now low between the final walls of hill, where the valley ends, and it seems to belong to the city below, as if it were the city's god descending there for once in answer to some especially rich altar or noble deed. The towers and their bells are as maidens pensively embroidering, and now and then dropping their embroidery to sing a melody of something far away; and long after the sun has gone and the city has disappeared their song is repeated in the fragrant and noiseless abysses of the far-stretched night.

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/195


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/1


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/2


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/3


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/4


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/5


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/6


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/8


text: The Heart of England/Chapter 34

title: The Heart of England/Chapter 34


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/9


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/10


text:
Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/11

or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. having observed that they were not half bad; and some of my relations having promised to buy the book, if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I, perhaps, should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers ask now-a-days in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is, that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change.


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/12


text:
Page:The Heart of England.djvu/234

tide moves the river northward, towards me, under the bridge on which I stand. On both sides it is lined for a little way by houses: on the east in a flat, straight front, on the west in irregular rocky masses. Those on the east are coldly stained with light from the western sky; those opposite are vaguely shadowed and have an airiness and gloom—not a light yet appearing—as of the other side of Lethe. The river is of noble breadth.

Against the eastern houses rise up the masses of seven fishing boats in a row, with only such movement as makes the shadow run into the brown and gold, or the gold and brown into the shadow of the sails slowly, like the unfolding of poppies: and under their sides the shadows are profound as if they trailed black velvet mantles that hid the water. For, away from the boats, the unrippled surface of the motionlessly gliding river is of that lugubrious silver that seems to be, not water, but some trick of light upon mere air, such as is seen above summer meadows in the heat.

And over all is bent a pale, soft, empurpled sky, and in it a crescent moon.

Up the river came two fishing boats, sleeping, their motion the only proof of the tide—no man visible on

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/234


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/13


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/14


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/188


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/189


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/190


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/191


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/192


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/193


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/194


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/195


text: Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/196


text:
Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/7

 THE

AN IDLE HOLIDAY

JEROME K JEROME


text:
Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/15

is a most remarkable thing. I sat down with the full intention of writing something clever and original; but for the life of me I can't think of anything clever and original—at least, not at this moment. The only thing I can think about now is being hard up. I suppose having my hands in my pockets has made me think about this. I always do sit with my hands in my pockets, except when I am in the company of my sisters, my cousins, or my aunts; and they kick up such a shindy—I should say expostulate so eloquently upon the subject—that I have to give in and take them out—my hands I mean. The chorus to their objections is that it is not gentlemanly. I am hanged if I can see why. I could understand its not being considered gentlemanly to put your hands in


text:
Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/16

 other people's pockets (especially by the other people), but how, O ye sticklers for what looks this and what looks that, can putting his hands in his own pockets make a man less gentle? Perhaps you are right, though. Now I come to think of it, I have heard some people grumble most savagely when doing it. But they were mostly old gentlemen. We young fellows, as a rule, are never quite at ease unless we have our hands in our pockets. We are awkward and shifty. We are like what a music-hall Lion Comique would be without his opera-hat, if such a thing can be imagined. But let us put our hands in our trousers pockets, and let there be some small change in the right-hand one and a bunch of keys in the left, and we will face a female post-office clerk.

It is a little difficult to know what to do with your hands, even in your pockets, when there is nothing else there. Years ago, when my whole capital would occasionally come down to "what in town the people call a bob," I would recklessly spend a penny of it, merely for the sake of having the change, all in coppers, to jingle. You don't feel nearly so hard up with eleven pence in your pocket as you do with a shilling. Had I been "La-di-da," that impecunious youth about whom we superior folk are so sarcastic, I would have changed my penny for two ha'pennies.

I can speak with authority on the subject of being


text:
Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/17

 hard up. I have been a provincial actor. If further evidence be required, which I do not think likely, I can add that I have been a "gentleman connected with the press." I have lived on fifteen shillings a week. I have lived a week on ten, owing the other five; and I have lived for a fortnight on a great-coat.

It is wonderful what an insight into domestic economy being really hard up gives one. If you want to find out the value of money, live on fifteen shillings a week and see how much you can put by for clothes and recreation. You will find out that it is worth while to wait for the farthing change, that it is worth while to walk a mile to save a penny, that a glass of beer is a luxury to be indulged in only at rare intervals, and that a collar can be worn for four days.

Try it just before you get married. It will be excellent practice. Let your son and heir try it before sending him to college. He won't grumble at a hundred a year pocket-money then. There are some people to whom it would do a world of good. There is that delicate blossom, who can't drink any claret under ninety-four, and who would as soon think of dining off cats' meat as off plain roast mutton. You do come across these poor wretches now and then, though, to the credit of humanity, they are principally confined to that fearful and wonderful society


text:
Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/18

 known only to lady novelists. I never hear of one of these creatures discussing a menu card, but I feel a mad desire to drag him off to the bar of some common east-end public-house, and cram a sixpenny dinner down his throat—beefsteak pudding, fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half a pint of porter, a penny. The recollection of it (and the mingled fragrance of beer, tobacco, and roast pork generally leaves a vivid impression) might induce him to turn up his nose a little less frequently in the future at everything that is put before him. Then, there is that generous party, the cadger's delight, who is so free with his small change, but who never thinks of paying his debts. It might teach even him a little common sense. "I always give the waiter a shilling. One can't give the fellow less, you know," explained a young Government clerk with whom I was lunching the other day in Regent Street. I agreed with him as to the utter impossibility of making it elevenpence ha'penny; but, at the same time, I resolved to one day decoy him to an eating-house I remembered near Covent Garden, where the waiter, for the better discharge of his duties, goes about in his shirt-sleeves—and very dirty sleeves they are too, when it gets near the end of the month. I know that waiter. If my friend gives him anything beyond a penny, the man will insist on shaking hands with him then and there, as a mark of his esteem: of that I feel sure.

There have been a good many funny things said and