Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though the calm frost of twenty degrees Reaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day, and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special celebration of the season.
Talk is her business, and her chief delight To tell of prodigies and cause affright. She fills the people's ears with Dido's name, Who, lost to honor and the sense of shame, Admits into her throne and nuptial bed A wand'ring guest, who from his country fled: Whole days with him she passes in delights, And wastes in luxury long winter nights, Forgetful of her fame and royal trust, Dissolv'd in ease, abandon'd to her lust.
In the early days of the world, the world was too full of wonders to require any other miracles. The whole world was a miracle and a revelation, there was no need for any special disclosure. At that time the heavens, the waters, the sun and moon, the stars of heaven, the showers and dew, the winds of God, fire and heat, winter and summer, ice and snow, nights and days, lightnings and clouds, the earth, the mountains and hills, the green things upon the earth, the wells, and seas and floods--all blessed the Lord, praised Him and magnified Him for ever. Can we imagine a more powerful revelation? Is it for us to say that for the children of men to join in praising and magnifying Him who revealed Himself in His own way in all the magnificence, the wisdom and order of nature, is mere paganism, polytheism, pantheism, and abominable idolatry? I have heard many blasphemies, I have heard none greater than this.
On the Karroo the mean maximum temperature is 77° F., the mean minimum 49°, the mean daily range about 27°. In summer the drought is severe, the heat during the day great, the nights cool and clear. In winter frost at night is not uncommon. The climate of the northern plains is similar to that of the Karroo, but the extremes of cold and heat are greater. In the summer the shade temperature reaches 110° F., whilst in winter nights 12° of frost have been registered. The hot westerly winds of summer make the air oppressive, though violent thunderstorms, in which form the northern districts receive most of their scanty rainfall, occasionally clear the atmosphere. Mirages are occasionally seen. The keen air, accompanied by the brilliant sunshine, renders the winter climate very enjoyable. Snow seldom falls in the coast region, but it lies on the higher mountains for three or four months in the year, and for as many days on the Karroo. Violent hailstorms, which do great damage, sometimes follow periods of drought. The most disagreeable feature of the climate of the colony is the abundance of dust, which seems to be blown by every wind, and is especially prevalent in the rainy season. Entry: CAPE
His first collection escaped censure. "We must pardon many things to the author of _Le Roi d'Yvetot_," said Louis XVIII. The second (1821) was more daring. The apathy of the Liberal camp, he says, had convinced him of the need for some bugle call of awakening. This publication lost him his situation in the university, and subjected him to a trial, a fine of 500 francs and an imprisonment of three months. Imprisonment was a small affair for Béranger. At Sainte Pélagie he occupied a room (it had just been quitted by Paul Louis Courier), warm, well furnished, and preferable in every way to his own poor lodging, where the water froze on winter nights. He adds, on the occasion of his second imprisonment, that he found a certain charm in this quiet, claustral existence, with its regular hours and long evenings alone over the fire. This second imprisonment of nine months, together with a fine and expenses amounting to 1100 francs, followed on the appearance of his fourth collection. The government proposed through Laffitte that, if he would submit to judgment without appearing or making defences, he should only be condemned in the smallest penalty. But his public spirit made him refuse the proposal; and he would not even ask permission to pass his term of imprisonment in a _Maison de santé_, although his health was more than usually feeble at the time. "When you have taken your stand in a contest with government, it seems to me," he wrote, "ridiculous to complain of the blows it inflicts on you, and impolitic to furnish it with any occasion of generosity." His first thought in La Force was to alleviate the condition of the other prisoners. Entry: BÉRANGER
But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves; snow-drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.
It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the German doctor from Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns were sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its hollows and snow-covered pools of water.
I ceas'd, when thus the venerable shade. Not so; she faithful still and patient dwells Thy roof beneath; but all her days and nights Devoting sad to anguish and to tears. Thy fortunes still are thine; Telemachus Cultivates, undisturb'd, thy land, and sits At many a noble banquet, such as well Beseems the splendour of his princely state, For all invite him; at his farm retired Thy father dwells, nor to the city comes, For aught; nor bed, nor furniture of bed, Furr'd cloaks or splendid arras he enjoys, But, with his servile hinds all winter sleeps In ashes and in dust at the hearth-side, Coarsely attired; again, when summer comes, Or genial autumn, on the fallen leaves In any nook, not curious where, he finds There, stretch'd forlorn, nourishing grief, he weeps Thy lot, enfeebled now by num'rous years. So perish'd I; such fate I also found; Me, neither the right-aiming arch'ress struck, Diana, with her gentle shafts, nor me Distemper slew, my limbs by slow degrees But sure, bereaving of their little life, But long regret, tender solicitude, And recollection of thy kindness past, These, my Ulysses! fatal proved to me.
ANTIPODES (Gr. [Greek: anti], opposed to, and [Greek: podes], feet), a term applied strictly to any two peoples or places on opposite sides of the earth, so situated that a line drawn from the one to the other passes through the centre of the globe and forms a true diameter. Any two places having this relation--as London and, approximately, Antipodes Island, near New Zealand--must be distant from each other by 180° of longitude, and the one must be as many degrees to the north of the equator as the other is to the south, in other words, the latitudes are numerically equal, but one is _north_ and the other _south_. Noon at the one place is midnight at the other, the longest day corresponds to the shortest, and mid-winter is contemporaneous with midsummer. In the calculation of days and nights, midnight on the one side may be regarded as corresponding to the noon either of the _previous_ or of the _following_ day. If a voyager sail eastward, and thus anticipate the sun, his dating will be twelve hours in advance, while the reckoning of another who has been sailing westward will be as much in arrear. There will thus be a difference of twenty-four hours between the two when they meet. To avoid the confusion of dates which would thus arise, it is necessary to determine a meridian at which dates should be brought into agreement, i.e. a line the crossing of which would involve the changing of the name of the day either forwards, when proceeding westwards, or backwards, when proceeding eastwards. Mariners have generally adopted the meridian 180° from Greenwich, situated in the Pacific Ocean, as a convenient line for co-ordinating dates. The so-called "International Date Line," which is, however, practically only due to American initiative, is designed to remove certain objections to the meridian of 180° W., the most important of which is that groups of islands lying about this meridian differ in date by a day although only a few miles apart. Several forms have been suggested; these generally agree in retaining the meridian of 180° in the mid Pacific, with a bend in the north in order to make the Aleutian Islands and Alaska of the same time as America, and also in the south so as to bring certain of the South Sea islands into line with Australia and New Zealand. Entry: ANTIPODES
CLARKE, JOHN SLEEPER (1833-1899), American actor, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 3rd of September 1833, and was educated for the law. He made his first appearance in Boston as Frank Hardy in _Paul Pry_ in 1851. In 1859 he married Asia Booth, daughter of Junius Brutus Booth, and he was associated with his brother-in-law Edwin Booth in the management of the Winter Garden theatre in New York, the Walnut Street theatre in Philadelphia and the Boston theatre. In 1867 he went to London, where he made his first appearance at the St James's as Major Wellington de Boots in Stirling Coynes's _Everybody's Friend_, rewritten for him and called _The Widow's Hunt_. His success was so great that he remained in England for the rest of his life, except for four visits to America. Among his favourite parts were Toodles, which ran for 200 nights at the Strand, Dr Pangloss in _The Heir-at-law_, and Dr Ollapod in _The Poor Gentleman_. He managed several London theatres, including the Haymarket, where he preceded the Bancrofts. He retired in 1889, and died on the 24th of September 1899. His two sons also were actors. Entry: CLARKE
Central Italy also presents striking differences of climate and temperature according to the greater or less proximity to the mountains. Thus the greater part of Tuscany, and the provinces thence to Rome, enjoy a mild winter climate, and are well adapted to the growth of mulberries and olives as well as vines, but it is not till after passing Terracina, in proceeding along the western coast towards the south, that the vegetation of southern Italy develops in its full luxuriance. Even in the central parts of Tuscany, however, the climate is very much affected by the neighbouring mountains, and the increasing elevation of the Apennines as they proceed south produces a corresponding effect upon the temperature. But it is when we reach the central range of the Apennines that we find the coldest districts of Italy. In all the upland valleys of the Abruzzi snow begins to fall early in November, and heavy storms occur often as late as May; whole communities are shut out for months from any intercourse with their neighbours, and some villages are so long buried in snow that regular passages are made between the different houses for the sake of communication among the inhabitants. The district from the south-east of Lake Fucino to the Piano di Cinque Miglia, enclosing the upper basin of the Sangro and the small lake of Scanno, is the coldest and most bleak part of Italy south of the Alps. Heavy falls of snow in June are not uncommon, and only for a short time towards the end of July are the nights totally exempt from light frosts. Yet less than 40 m. E. of this district, and even more to the north, the olive, the fig-tree and the orange thrive luxuriantly on the shores of the Adriatic from Ortona to Vasto. In the same way, whilst in the plains and hills round Naples snow is rarely seen, and never remains long, and the thermometer seldom descends to the freezing-point, 20 m. E. from it in the fertile valley of Avellino, of no great elevation, but encircled by high mountains, light frosts are not uncommon as late as June; and 18 m. farther east, in the elevated region of San Angelo dei Lombardi and Bisaccia, the inhabitants are always warmly clad, and vines grow with difficulty and only in sheltered places. Still farther south-east, Potenza has almost the coldest climate in Italy, and certainly the lowest summer temperatures. But nowhere are these contrasts so striking as in Calabria. The shores, especially on the Tyrrhenian Sea, present almost a continued grove of olive, orange, lemon and citron trees, which attain a size unknown in the north of Italy. The sugar-cane flourishes, the cotton-plant ripens to perfection, date-trees are seen in the gardens, the rocks are clothed with the prickly-pear or Indian fig, the enclosures of the fields are formed by aloes and sometimes pomegranates, the liquorice-root grows wild, and the mastic, the myrtle and many varieties of oleander and cistus form the underwood of the natural forests of arbutus and evergreen oak. If we turn inland but 5 or 6 m. from the shore, and often even less, the scene changes. High districts covered with oaks and chestnuts succeed to this almost tropical vegetation; a little higher up and we reach the elevated regions of the Pollino and the Sila, covered with firs and pines, and affording rich pastures even in the midst of summer, when heavy dews and light frosts succeed each other in July and August, and snow begins to appear at the end of September or early in October. Along the shores of the Adriatic, which are exposed to the north-east winds, blowing coldly from over the Albanian mountains, delicate plants do not thrive so well in general as under the same latitude along the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Entry: 4
Cattle, sheep, swine and poultry are reared in abundance. The bracing weather of Canadian winters is followed by the warmth and humidity of genial summers, under which crops grow in almost tropical luxuriance, while the cool evenings and nights give the plants a robustness of quality which is not to be found in tropical regions, and also make life for the various domestic animals wholesome and comfortable. In the North-West Provinces there are vast areas of prairie land, over which cattle pasture, and from which thousands of fat bullocks are shipped annually. Throughout other parts bullocks are fed on pasture land, and also in stables on nourishing and succulent feed such as hay, Indian corn fodder, Indian corn silage, turnips, carrots, mangels, ground oats, barley, peas, Indian corn, rye, bran and linseed oil cake. The breeding of cattle, adapted for the production of prime beef and of dairy cows for the production of milk, butter and cheese, has received much attention. There is government control of the spaces on the steamships in which the cattle are carried, and veterinary inspection prevents the exportation of diseased animals. Entry: AGRICULTURE
After the death of her husband Mrs Hawthorne removed to the house of her father with her little family of children. Of the boyhood of Nathaniel no particulars have reached us, except that he was fond of taking long walks alone, and that he used to declare to his mother that he would go to sea some time and would never return. Among the books that he is known to have read as a child were Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Thomson, _The Castle of Indolence_ being an especial favourite. In the autumn of 1818 bis mother removed to Raymond, a town in Cumberland county, Maine, where his uncle, Richard Manning, had built a large and ambitious dwelling. Here the lad resumed his solitary walks, exchanging the narrow streets of Salem for the boundless, primeval wilderness, and its sluggish harbour for the fresh bright waters of Sebago lake. He roamed the woods by day, with his gun and rod, and in the moonlight nights of winter skated upon the lake alone till midnight. When he found himself away from home, and wearied with his exercise, he took refuge in a log cabin where half a tree would be burning upon the hearth. He had by this time acquired a taste for writing, that showed itself in a little blank-book, in which he jotted down his woodland adventures and feelings, and which was remarkable for minute observation and nice perception of nature. Entry: HAWTHORNE
GELLIUS, AULUS (c. A.D. 130-180), Latin author and grammarian, probably born at Rome. He studied grammar and rhetoric at Rome and philosophy at Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office. His teachers and friends included many distinguished men--Sulpicius Apollinaris, Herodes Atticus and Fronto. His only work, the _Noctes Atticae_, takes its name from having been begun during the long nights of a winter which he spent in Attica. He afterwards continued it at Rome. It is compiled out of an Adversaria, or commonplace book, in which he had jotted down everything of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in books, and it comprises notes on grammar, geometry, philosophy, history and almost every other branch of knowledge. The work, which is utterly devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books. All these have come down to us except the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index. The _Noctes Atticae_ is valuable for the insight it affords into the nature of the society and pursuits of those times, and for the numerous excerpts it contains from the works of lost ancient authors. Entry: GELLIUS
_Mountain Climates._--The mountain climates of the temperate zone have the usual characteristics which are associated with altitude everywhere. If the altitude is sufficiently great the decreased temperature gives mountains a polar climate, with the difference that the summers are relatively cool while the winters are mild owing to inversions of temperature in anticyclonic weather. Hence the annual ranges are smaller than over lowlands. At such times of inversion the mountain-tops often appear as local areas of higher temperature in a general region of colder air over the valleys and lowlands. The increased intensity of insolation aloft is an important factor in giving certain mountain resorts their deserved popularity in winter (_e.g._ Davos and Meran). Of Meran it has been well said that from December to March the nights are winter, but the days are mild spring. The diurnal ascending air currents of summer usually give mountains their maximum cloudiness and highest relative humidity in the warmer months, while winter is the drier and clearer season. This is shown in curve M, fig. 13. The clouds of winter are low, those of summer are higher. Hence the annual march of cloudiness on mountains is usually the opposite of that on lowlands. Entry: S
_Climate._--The large extension of the Japanese islands in a northerly and southerly direction causes great varieties of climate. General characteristics are hot and humid though short summers, and long, cold and clear winters. The equatorial currents produce conditions differing from those existing at corresponding latitudes on the neighbouring continent. In Kiushiu, Shikoku and the southern half of the main island, the months of July and August alone are marked by oppressive heat at the sea-level, while in elevated districts a cool and even bracing temperature may always be found, though the direct rays of the sun retain distressing power. Winter in these districts does not last more than two months, from the end of December to the beginning of March; for although the latter month is not free from frost and even snow, the balminess of spring makes itself plainly perceptible. In the northern half of the main island, in Yezo and in the Kuriles, the cold is severe during the winter, which lasts for at least four months, and snow falls sometimes to great depths. Whereas in Tokyo the number of frosty nights during a year does not average much over 60, the corresponding number in Sapporo on the north-west of Yezo is 145. But the variation of the thermometer in winter and summer being considerable--as much as 72° F. in Tokyo--the climate proves somewhat trying to persons of weak constitution. On the other hand, the mean daily variation is in general less than that in other countries having the same latitude: it is greatest in January, when it reaches 18° F., and least in July, when it barely exceeds 9° F. The monthly variation is very great in March, when it usually reaches 43° F. Entry: 1
_Climate._--Owing to its low latitude and generally arid surface, Arabia is on the whole one of the hottest regions of the earth; this is especially the case along the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the southern half of the Red Sea, where the moist heat throughout the year is almost intolerable to Europeans. In the interior of northern and central Arabia, however, where the average level of the country exceeds 3000 ft., the fiery heat of the summer days is followed by cool nights, and the winter climate is fresh and invigorating; while in the highlands of Asir and Yemen in the south-west, and of Oman in the east, the summer heat is never excessive, and the winters are, comparatively speaking, cold. Entry: A
_Climate._--The climate of Indo-China is that of an inter-tropical country, damp and hot. But the difference between the southern and northern regions is marked, as regards both temperature and meteorology. Cochin-China and Cambodia have very regular seasons, corresponding with the monsoons. The north-easterly monsoon blows from about the 15th of October to the 15th of April, within a day or so. The temperature remains almost steady during this time, varying but slightly from 78.8° to 80.6° F. by day to 68° by night. This is the dry season. From the 15th of April to the 15th of October the monsoon reverses, and blows from the south-west. The season of daily rains and tornadoes commences. The temperature rises from 80.6° to 84.2°, at which it remains day and night. April and May are the hottest months (from 86° to 93.2°). The damp unwholesome heat sometimes produces dysentery and cholera. The climate of Annam is less regular. The north-easterly monsoon, which is "the ocean-wind," brings the rains in September. The north-easterly gales lower the temperature below 59°. September is the month in which the typhoon blows. During the dry season--June, July and August--the thermometer oscillates between 86° and 95°. The nights, however, are comparatively cool. Tongking has a winter season--October to May. The temperature, lowered by fog and the rains, does not rise above 75.2° and descends to 50° over the delta, and to 44.6° and even 42.8° in the highlands, where white frost is occasionally seen. The summer, on the other hand, is scorching. The wind veers to the south-east and remains there until October. The temperature rises to over 83°; often it reaches and continues for several days at 95° or even more. The nights are distressingly airless. The Laos country in the interior and lying at a high altitude is cooler and drier. Its deep valleys and high hills vary its climate. Entry: INDO
CANTONMENT (Fr. _cantonnement_, from _cantonner_, to quarter; Ger. _Ortsunterkunft_ or _Quartier_). When troops are distributed in small parties amongst the houses of a town or village, they are said to be in cantonments, which are also called quarters or billets. Formerly this method of providing soldiers with shelter was rarely employed on active service, though the normal method in "winter quarters," or at seasons when active military operations were not in progress. In the field, armies lived as a rule in camp (q.v.), and when the provision of canvas shelter was impossible in bivouac. At the present time, however, it is unusual, in Europe at any rate, for troops on active service to hamper themselves with the enormous trains of tent wagons that would be required, and cantonments or bivouacs, or a combination of the two have therefore taken the place, in modern warfare, of the old long rectilinear lines of tents that marked the resting-place and generally, too, the order of battle of an 18th-century army. The greater part of an army operating in Europe at the present day is accommodated in widespread cantonments, an army corps occupying the villages and farms found within an area of 4 m. by 5 or 6. This allowance of space has been ascertained by experience to be sufficient, not only for comfort, but also for subsistence for one day, provided that the density of the ordinary civil population is not less than 200 persons to the square mile. Under modern conditions there is little danger from such a dissemination of the forces, as each fraction of each army corps is within less than two hours' march of its concentration post. If the troops halt for several days, of course they require either a more densely populated country from which to requisition supplies, or a wider area of cantonments. The difficulty of controlling the troops, when scattered in private houses in parties of six or seven, is the principal objection to this system of cantonments. But since Napoleon introduced the "war of masses" the only alternative to cantoning the troops is bivouacking, which if prolonged for several nights is more injurious to the well-being of the troops than the slight relaxation of discipline necessitated by the cantonment system, when the latter is well arranged and policed. The troops nearest the enemy, however, which have to be maintained in a state of constant readiness for battle, cannot as a rule afford the time either for dispersing into quarters or for rallying on an alarm, and in western Europe at any rate they are required to bivouac. In India, the term "cantonment" means more generally a military station or standing camp. The troops live, not in private houses, but in barracks, huts, forts or occasionally camps. The large cantonments are situated in the neighbourhood of the North-Western frontier, of the large cities and of the capitals of important native states. Under Lord Kitchener's redistribution of the Indian army in 1903, the chief cantonments are Rawalpindi, Quetta, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Nowshera, Sialkot, Mian Mir, Umballa, Muttra, Ferozepore, Meerut, Lucknow, Mhow, Jubbulpore, Bolarum, Poona, Secunderabad and Bangalore. Entry: CANTONMENT