Quotes4study

In the corner room at the club, members gathered to read these broadsheets, and some liked the way Karpushka jeered at the French, saying: "They will swell up with Russian cabbage, burst with our buckwheat porridge, and choke themselves with cabbage soup. They are all dwarfs and one peasant woman will toss three of them with a hayfork." Others did not like that tone and said it was stupid and vulgar. It was said that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen and even all foreigners from Moscow, and that there had been some spies and agents of Napoleon among them; but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchin's witty remark on that occasion. The foreigners were deported to Nizhni by boat, and Rostopchin had said to them in French: "Rentrez en vousmemes; entrez dans la barque, et n'en faites pas une barque de Charon." * There was talk of all the government offices having been already removed from Moscow, and to this Shinshin's witticism was added--that for that alone Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamonov's regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezukhov had spent even more on his, but that the best thing about Bezukhov's action was that he himself was going to don a uniform and ride at the head of his regiment without charging anything for the show.

Leo Tolstoy     War and Peace

Now marshall'd all beneath their several chiefs, With deafening shouts, and with the clang of arms, The host of Troy advanced. Such clang is heard Along the skies, when from incessant showers Escaping, and from winter's cold, the cranes Take wing, and over Ocean speed away; Wo to the land of dwarfs! prepared they fly For slaughter of the small Pygmæan race. Not so the Greeks; they breathing valor came, But silent all, and all with faithful hearts On succor mutual to the last, resolved. As when the south wind wraps the mountain top In mist the shepherd's dread, but to the thief Than night itself more welcome, and the eye Is bounded in its ken to a stone's cast, Such from beneath their footsteps dun and dense Uprose the dust, for swift they cross the plain.

BOOK III.     The Iliad by Homer

Of the temples of the eastern zone the best known is Chandi Jago (or Tumpang), elaborately described in the Archaeological Commission's monograph. According to the _Pararaton_, a native chronicle (published in the _Verhand. v. h. Bat. Gen. v. K. en W._, 1896), it belongs to the 13th century, containing the tomb of Rangavuni or Vishnuvardhana, who died in 1272-1273. The shrine proper occupies the third of three platforms, the lowest of which forms a square of 45 to 46 ft. each side. The building fronts the west, and is constructed of an andesitic tuff of inferior quality and dark colour. Of distinctly Buddhistic influence there is no trace. The makara (elephant-fish head) is notably absent. The sculptures which run round the base and along the sides of the platforms or terraces are of the most elaborate and varied description--kings on thrones, dwarfs, elephants, supernatural beings, diabolical and grotesque, tree-monsters, palaces, temples, courtyards, lakes, gardens, forests--all are represented. In one place appears a Chinese--or Burmese-looking seven-roofed pagoda; in another, a tall temple strangely split down the centre, with a flight of steps running up the fissure. The inscriptions are in the Devanagari character. In the same neighbourhood are Ch. Singossari, Ch. Kidal, &c. Another of the most beautiful of the eastern temples is Ch. Jabung, mentioned in 1330. It is built of red brick; and its distinctly Javanese origin is suggested by the frequency of the snake-motif still characteristic of modern Javanese art. It may be added that a comparison of the several buildings of the zone affords an interesting study in the development of the pilaster as a decorative rather than structural element. Entry: JAVA

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 3 "Japan" (part) to "Jeveros"     1910-1911

(1) Beowulf, king of the Geatas (Jutland), whose story in its present form was probably brought from the continent by the Angles. It is an amalgamation of the myth of Beowa, the slayer of the water-demon and the dragon, with the historical legend of Beowulf, nephew and successor of Hygelac (Chochilaicus), king of the Geatas, who was defeated and slain (c. 520) while ravaging the Frisian coast. The water-demon Grendel and the dragon (probably), by whom Beowulf is mortally wounded, have been supposed to represent the powers of autumn and darkness, the floods which at certain seasons overflow the low-lying countries on the coast of the North Sea and sweep away all human habitations; Beowulf is the hero of spring and light who, after overcoming the spirit of the raging waters, finally succumbs to the dragon of approaching winter. Others regard him as a wind-hero, who disperses the pestilential vapours of the fens. Beowulf is also a culture-hero. His father Sceaf-Scyld (i.e. Scyld Scefing, "the protector with the sheaf") lands on the Anglian or Scandinavian coast when a child, in a rudderless ship, asleep on a sheaf of grain, symbolical of the means whereby his kingdom shall become great; the son indicates the blessings of a fixed habitation, secured against the attacks of the sea. (2) Hildebrand, the hero of the oldest German epic. A loyal supporter of Theodoric, he follows his master, when threatened by Odoacer, to the court of Attila. After thirty years' absence, he returns to his home In Italy; his son Hadubrand, believing his father to be dead, suspects treachery and refuses to accept presents offered by the father in token of good-will. A fight takes place, in which the son is slain by the father. In a later version, recognition and reconciliation take place. Well-known parallels are Odysseus and Telegonis, Rustem and Sohrab. (3) Ermanaric, the king of the East Goths, who according to Ammianus Marcellinus slew himself (c. 375) in terror at the invasion of the Huns. With him is connected the old German Dioscuri myth of the Harlungen. (4) Dietrich of Bern (Verona), the legendary name of Theodoric the Great. Contrary to historical tradition, Italy is supposed to have been his ancestral inheritance, of which he has been deprived by Odoacer, or by Ermanaric, who in his altered character of a typical tyrant appears as his uncle and contemporary. He takes refuge in Hungary with Etzel (Attila), by whose aid he finally recovers his kingdom. In the later middle ages he is represented as fighting with giants, dragons and dwarfs, and finally disappears on a black horse. Some attempts have been made to identify him as a kind of Donar or god of thunder. (5) Siegfried (M.H. Ger. Sîvrit), the hero of the _Niebelungenlied_, the Sigurd of the related northern sagas, is usually regarded as a purely mythical figure, a hero of light who is ultimately overcome by the powers of darkness, the mist-people (Niebelungen). He is, however, closely associated with historical characters and events, e.g. with the Burgundian king Gundahari (Gunther, Gunnar) and the overthrow of his house and nation by the Huns; the scholars have exercised considerable ingenuity in attempting to identify him with various historical figures. Theodor Abeling (_Das Nibelungenlied_, Leipzig, 1907) traces the Nibelung sagas to three groups of Burgundian legends, each based on fact: the Frankish-Burgundian tradition of the murder of Segeric, son of the Burgundian king Sigimund, who was slain by his father at the instigation of his stepmother; the Frankish-Burgundian story, as told by Gregory of Tours (iii. 11), of the defeat of the Burgundian kings Sigimund and Godomar, and the captivity and murder of Sigimund, by the sons of Clovis, at the instigation of their mother Chrothildis, in revenge for the murder of her father Chilperich and of her mother, by Godomar; the Rhenish-Burgundian story of the ruin of Gundahari's kingdom by Attila's Huns. Herr Abeling identifies Siegfried (Sigurd) with Segeric, while--according to him--the heroine of the Nibelung sagas, Kriemhild (Gudrun), represents a confusion of two historical persons: Chrothildis, the wife of Clovis, and Ildico (Hilde), the wife of Attila. (See also the articles KRIEMHILD, NIBELUNGENLIED). Entry: 1

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 4 "Hero" to "Hindu Chronology"     1910-1911

Other modern dwarfs include Signor Hervio Nano, who played at the Olympic Theatre, London, in 1843; three Highlanders named MacKinlay, children of a Scots shepherd, the shortest of whom was 45 in.; a Spaniard, Don Francisco Hidalgo (29 in.); a Dutchman, Jan Hannema (28 in.); and Mary Jane Youngman (Australia), who at fifteen was 35 in. high. She was called the "dwarf-giantess" because she was 3 ft. 6 in. round the shoulders, 4 ft. 3 in. round the waist, and 2 ft. round the leg. Much interest was aroused by the so-called Aztec dwarfs who were exhibited in London in 1853. In 1867 the pair were married, the ceremony being publicly performed, and the bride's robes are said to have cost no less than £2000. The wedding-breakfast was held at Willis's Rooms. From time to time other dwarfs have been exhibited, among whom the most remarkable has been Che-mah, a Chinese, 42 years old and 25 in. high, who appeared in London in 1880. George Prout (1774-1851), who was less than 3 ft. high, was a well-known character in London in the early Victorian period, as a messenger at the Houses of Parliament. Entry: DWARF

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 8 "Dubner" to "Dyeing"     1910-1911

_Monuments._--In Piccadilly are bronze statues of Wellington, Watt, Dalton, Peel and Queen Victoria. Another statue of the Queen, by the Princess Louise, is placed on the new porch of the cathedral. A bronze statue of Cobden occupies a prominent position in St Ann's Square. There also is the South African War Memorial of the Manchester Regiment. The marble statue of the Prince Consort, covered by a Gothic canopy of stone, is in front of the town hall, which dwarfs what would otherwise be a striking monument. In Albert Square there are also statues of Bishop Fraser, John Bright, Oliver Heywood and W. E. Gladstone. A statue of J. P. Joule is in the town hall, which also contains memorials of other worthies. The Queen's Park has a statue of Benjamin Brierley, a well-known writer in the Lancashire dialect. The most picturesque is Matthew Noble's bronze statue of Cromwell, placed on a huge block of rough granite as pedestal. It stands at the junction of Deansgate and Victoria Street, near the cathedral, and was presented to the town by Mrs E. S. Heywood. Entry: MANCHESTER

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 17, Slice 5 "Malta" to "Map, Walter"     1910-1911

_Flora._--The flora of Japan has been carefully studied by many scientific men from Siebold downwards. Foreigners visiting Japan are immediately struck by the affection of the people for flowers, trees and natural beauties of every kind. In actual wealth of blossom or dimensions of forest trees the Japanese islands cannot claim any special distinction. The spectacles most admired by all classes are the tints of the foliage in autumn and the glory of flowering trees in the spring. In beauty and variety of pattern and colour the autumnal tints are unsurpassed. The colours pass from deep brown through purple to yellow and white, thrown into relief by the dark green of non-deciduous shrubs and trees. Oaks and wild prunus, wild vines and sumachs, various kinds of maple, the dodan (_Enkianthus Japonicus_ Hook.)--a wonderful bush which in autumn develops a hue of ruddy red--birches and other trees, all add multitudinous colours to the brilliancy of a spectacle which is further enriched by masses of feathery bamboo. The one defect is lack of green sward. The grass used for Japanese lawns loses its verdure in autumn and remains from November to March a greyish-brown blot upon the scene. Spring is supposed to begin in February when, according to the old calendar, the new year sets in, but the only flowers then in bloom are the _camellia japonica_ and some kinds of daphne. The former--called by the Japanese _tsubaki_--may often be seen glowing fiery red amid snow, but the pink (_otome tsubaki_), white (_shiro-tsubaki_) and variegated (_shibori-no-tsubaki_) kinds do not bloom until March or April. Neither the camellia nor the daphne is regarded as a refined flower: their manner of shedding their blossoms is too unsightly. Queen of spring flowers is the plum (_ume_). The tree lends itself with peculiar readiness to the skilful manipulation of the gardener, and is by him trained into shapes of remarkable grace. Its pure white or rose-red blossoms, heralding the first approach of genial weather, are regarded with special favour and are accounted the symbol of unassuming hardihood. The cherry (_sakura_) is even more esteemed. It will not suffer any training, nor does it, like the plum, improve by pruning, but the sunshine that attends its brief period of bloom in April, the magnificence of its flower-laden boughs and the picturesque flutter of its falling petals, inspired an ancient poet to liken it to the "soul of Yamato" (Japan), and it has ever since been thus regarded. The wild peach (_momo_) blooms at the same time, but attracts little attention. All these trees--the plum, the cherry and the peach--bear no fruit worthy of the name, nor do they excel their Occidental representatives in wealth of blossom, but the admiring affection they inspire in Japan is unique. Scarcely has the cherry season passed when that of the wistaria (_fuji_) comes, followed by the azalea (_tsutsuji_) and the iris (_shobu_), the last being almost contemporaneous with the peony (_botan_), which is regarded by many Japanese as the king of flowers and is cultivated assiduously. A species of weeping maple (_shidare-momiji_) dresses itself in peachy-red foliage and is trained into many picturesque shapes, though not without detriment to its longevity. Summer sees the lotus (_renge_) convert wide expanses of lake and river into sheets of white and red blossoms; a comparatively flowerless interval ensues until, in October and November, the chrysanthemum arrives to furnish an excuse for fashionable gatherings. With the exception of the dog-days and the dead of winter, there is no season when flowers cease to be an object of attention to the Japanese, nor does any class fail to participate in the sentiment. There is similar enthusiasm in the matter of gardens. From the 10th century onwards the art of landscape gardening steadily grew into a science, with esoteric as well as exoteric aspects, and with a special vocabulary. The underlying principle is to reproduce nature's scenic beauties, all the features being drawn to scale, so that however restricted the space, there shall be no violation of proportion. Thus the artificial lakes and hills, the stones forming rockeries or simulating solitary crags, the trees and even the bushes are all selected or manipulated so as to fall congruously into the general scheme. If, on the one hand, huge stones are transported hundreds of miles from seashore or river-bed where, in the lapse of long centuries, waves and cataracts have hammered them into strange shapes, and if the harmonizing of their various colours and the adjustment of their forms to environment are studied with profound subtlety, so the training and tending of the trees and shrubs that keep them company require much taste and much toil. Thus the red pine (_aka-matsu_ or _pinus densiflora_), which is the favourite garden tree, has to be subjected twice a year to a process of spray-dressing which involves the careful removal of every weak or aged needle. One tree occupies the whole time of a gardener for about ten days. The details are endless, the results delightful. But it has to be clearly understood that there is here no mention of a flower-garden in the Occidental sense of the term. Flowers are cultivated, but for their own sakes, not as a feature of the landscape garden. If they are present, it is only as an incident. This of course does not apply to shrubs which blossom at their seasons and fall always into the general scheme of the landscape. Forests of cherry-trees, plum-trees, magnolia trees, or _hiyaku-jikko_ (_Lagerstroemia indica_), banks of azalea, clumps of hydrangea, groups of camellia--such have their permanent places and their foliage adds notes of colour when their flowers have fallen. But chrysanthemums, peonies, roses and so forth, are treated as special shows, and are removed or hidden when out of bloom. There is another remarkable feature of the Japanese gardener's art. He dwarfs trees so that they remain measurable only by inches after their age has reached scores, even hundreds, of years, and the proportions of leaf, branch and stem are preserved with fidelity. The pots in which these wonders of patient skill are grown have to be themselves fine specimens of the ceramist's craft, and as much as £200 is sometimes paid for a notably well trained tree. Entry: F

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2 "Jacobites" to "Japan" (part)     1910-1911

It must not be supposed for a moment that all the people who speak Bantu languages belong necessarily to a special and definite type of negro. On the contrary, though there is a certain physical resemblance among those tribes who speak clearly-marked Bantu dialects (the Babangi of the upper Congo, the people of the Great Lakes, the Ova-herero, the Ba-tonga, Zulu-Kaffirs, Awemba and some of the East Coast tribes), there is nevertheless a great diversity in outward appearance, shape of head and other physical characteristics, among the negroes who inhabit Bantu Africa. Some tribes speaking Bantu languages are dwarfs or dwarfish, and belong to the group of Forest Pygmies. Others betray relationship to the Hottentots; others again cannot be distinguished from the most exaggerated types of the black West African negro. Yet others again, especially on the north, are of Gala (Galla) or Nilotic origin. But the general deduction to be drawn from a study of the Bantu languages, as they exist at the present day, is that at some period not more than 3000 years ago a powerful tribe of negroes speaking the Bantu mother-language, allied physically to the negroes of the south-western Nile and southern Lake Chad basins (yet impregnated with the Caucasian Hamite), pushed themselves forcibly from the very heart of Africa (the region between the watersheds of the Shari, Congo and western Nile) into the southern half of the continent, which at that time was probably sparsely populated except in the north-west, east and south. The Congo basin and the south-western watershed of the Nile at the time of the Bantu invasion would have been occupied on the Atlantic seaboard by West Coast negroes, and in the centre by negroes of a low type and by Forest Pygmies; the eastern coasts of Victoria Nyanza and the East African coast region down to opposite Zanzibar probably had a population partly Nilotic-negro and partly Hottentot-Bushman. From Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa south-westwards to the Cape of Good Hope the population was Forest-negro, Nilotic-negro, Hottentot and Bushman. Over nearly all this area the Bantu swept; and they assimilated or absorbed the vast majority of the preceding populations, of which, physically or linguistically, the only survivors are the scattered tribes of pygmies in the forests of south-west Nile land, Congo basin and Gabun, the central Sudanese of the N.E. Congo, a few patches of quasi-Hottentot, Hamitic and Nilotic peoples between Victoria Nyanza and the Zanzibar coast, and the Bushmen and Hottentots of south-west Africa. The first area of decided concentration on the part of the Bantu was very probably Uganda and the shores of Tanganyika. The main line of advance south-west trended rather to the east coast of Africa than to the west, but bifurcated at the south end of Lake Tanganyika, one great branch passing west between that lake and Nyasa, and the other southwards. Finally, when the Bantu had reached the [v.03 p.0357] south-west corner of Africa, their farther advance was checked by two causes: first, the concentration in a healthy, cattle-rearing part of Africa of the Hottentots (themselves only a superior type of Bushman, but able to offer a much sturdier resistance to the big black Bantu negroes than the crafty but feeble Bushmen), and secondly, the arrival on the scene of the Dutch and British, but for whose final intervention the whole of southern Africa would have been rapidly Bantuized, as far as the imposition of language was concerned. Entry: BANTU

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 "Banks" to "Bassoon"     1910-1911

From the earliest historic times dwarfs attracted attention, and there was much competition on the part of kings and the wealthy to obtain the little folk as attendants. It is certain that members of the tiny Akka race of Equatorial Africa figured at the courts of the Pharaohs of the early dynasties and were much valued. Philetas of Cos, poet and grammarian (circa 330 B.C.), tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus, was alleged to be so tiny that he had to wear leaden shoes lest he should be blown away. The Romans practised artificial dwarfing, and the Latin _nanus_ or _pumilo_ were terms alternatively used to describe the natural and unnatural dwarf. Julia, the niece of Augustus, had a dwarf named Coropas 2 ft. 4 in. high, and a freed-maid Andromeda who measured the same. Entry: DWARF

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 8 "Dubner" to "Dyeing"     1910-1911

Of European court dwarfs the most famous were those of Philip IV. of Spain, the hunchbacks whose features have been immortalized by Velazquez. Stanislas, king of Poland, owned Nicholas Ferry (Bébé), who measured 2 ft. 9 in. He was one of three dwarf children of peasant parents in the Vosges. He died in his 23rd year (1764). But Bébé was not so remarkable as Richebourg, who died in Paris in 1858, at the age of 90. He was only 23 in. high. He began life as a servant in the Orleans family. In later years he was their pensioner. He is said to have been put to strange use in the Revolution--passing in and out of Paris as an infant in a nurse's arms, but with despatches, dangerous to carry, in the little man's baby-wrappings! Entry: DWARF

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 8 "Dubner" to "Dyeing"     1910-1911

Apples have been grown and treated in a variety of ways, but of the different methods of treatment careless planting, coupled with subsequent neglect, has given the most adverse results, the crop of fruit being not 5% of that from trees grown normally. Of the separate deleterious items constituting total neglect, by far the most effective was the growth of weeds on the surface; careless planting, absence of manure, and the omission of trenching all had comparatively little influence on the results. A set of trees that had been carelessly planted and neglected, but subsequently tended in the early part of 1896, were in the autumn of that year only 10% behind their normally-treated neighbours, thus demonstrating that the response to proper attention is prompt. The growth of grass around young apple trees produced a very striking effect, the injury being much greater than that due to weeds. It is possible, however, that in wet years the ill-effects of both grass and weeds would be less than in dry seasons. Nevertheless, the grass-grown trees, after five years, were scarcely bigger than when planted, and the actual increase in weight which they showed during that time was about eighteen times smaller than in the case of similar trees in tilled ground. It is believed that one of the main causes of the ill-effects is the large increase in the evaporation of water from the soil which is known to be produced by grass, the trees being thereby made to suffer from drought, with constant deprivation of other nourishment as well. That grass growing round young apple trees is deleterious was a circumstance known to many horticulturists, but the extent to which it interferes with the development of the trees had never before been realized. Thousands of pounds are annually thrown away in England through want of knowledge of this fact. Yet trees will flourish in grass under certain conditions. Whether the dominant factor is the age (or size) of the tree has been investigated by grassing over trees which have hitherto been in the open ground, and the results appear to indicate that the grass is as deleterious to the older trees as it was to the younger ones. Again, it appears to have been demonstrated that young apple trees, at all events in certain soils, require but little or no manure in the early stages of their existence, so that in this case also large sums must be annually wasted upon manurial dressings which produce no effects. The experiments have dealt with dwarf trees of Bramley, Cox and Potts, six trees of each variety constituting one investigation. Some of the experiments were repeated with Stirling Castle, and others with standard trees of Bramley, Cox and Lane's Prince Albert. All were planted in 1894-1895, the dwarfs being then three years old and the standards four. In each experiment the "normal" treatment is altered in some one particular, this normal treatment consisting of planting the trees carefully in trenched ground, and subsequently keeping the surface clean; cutting back after planting, pruning moderately in autumn, and shortening the growths when it appeared necessary in summer; giving in autumn a dressing of mixed mineral manures, and in February one of nitrate of soda, this dressing being probably equivalent to one of 12 tons of dung per acre. In the experiments on branch treatment, the bad effects of omitting to cut the trees back on planting, or to prune them subsequently, is evident chiefly in the straggling and bad shape of the resulting trees, but such trees also are not so vigorous as they should be. The quantity of fruit borne, however, is in excess of the average. The check on the vigour and growth of a tree by cutting or injuring its roots is in marked contrast with the effects of a similar interference with the branches. Trees which had been root-pruned each year were in 1898 little more than half as big as the normal trees, whilst those root-pruned every second year were about two-thirds as big as the normal. The crops borne by these trees were nevertheless heavy in proportion to the size of the trees. Such frequent root-pruning is not, of course, a practice which should be adopted. It was found that trees which had been carefully lifted every other year and replanted at once experienced no ill-effects from the operation; but in a case where the trees after being lifted had been left in a shed for three days before replanting--which would reproduce to a certain extent the conditions experienced when trees are sent out from a nursery--material injury was suffered, these trees after four years being 28% smaller than similar ones which had not been replanted. Sets of trees planted respectively in November, January and March have, on the whole, shown nothing in favour of any of these different times for planting purposes. Some doubt is thrown on the accepted view that there is a tendency, at any rate with young apple and pear trees, to fruit in alternate seasons. Entry: TABLE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 3 "Frost" to "Fyzabad"     1910-1911