The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.
A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.
"If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St. Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as she did not like the neighbourhood in which she found herself. While she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her husband looking down at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning to her from a second-floor window. The window was open, and she distinctly saw his face, which she describes as being terribly agitated. He waved his hands frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed to her that he had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind. One singular point which struck her quick feminine eye was that although he wore some dark coat, such as he had started to town in, he had on neither collar nor necktie.
The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed himself in the aperture. His costume was a peculiar mixture of the professional and of the agricultural, having a black top-hat, a long frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand. So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to side. A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey.
"Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only--
This evidence suddenly burst upon the mind of the man who was trying to move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant ejaculation:
"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself," muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.
Superior, it is sometimes claimed, in construction and style, the later books approximate it may be thought to the good _ordinary_ novel of commerce, but they lack the _extraordinary_ qualities, the incommunicable "go" of the early books--the élan of Lever's untamed youth. Artless and almost formless these productions may be, but they represent to us, as very few other books can, that pathetic ejaculation of Lever's own--"Give us back the wild freshness of the morning!" We know the novelist's teachers, Maxwell, Napier, the old-fashioned compilation known as _Victoires, conquêtes et désastres des Français_ (1835), and the old buffers at Brussels who emptied the room by uttering the word "Badajos." But where else shall we find the equals of the military scenes in _O'Malley_ and _Tom Burke_, or the military episodes in _Jack Hinton_, _Arthur O'Leary_ (the story of Aubuisson) or _Maurice Tiernay_ (nothing he ever did is finer than the chapter introducing "A remnant of Fontenoy")? It is here that his true genius lies, even more than in his talent for conviviality and fun, which makes an early copy of an early Lever (with Phiz's illustrations) seem literally to exhale an atmosphere of past and present entertainment. It is here that he is a true romancist, not for boys only, but also for men. Entry: LEVER
If the matter afterwards collected in the Koran be genuine, the early revelations must have been miscellaneous in content, magical, historical and homiletic. To some strange oaths are prefixed. Apparently the purpose to be compassed was to convince the audience of their miraculous origin. The formulation of doctrines belongs to a later period and that of jurisprudence to the latest of all. In that last period also, when Mahomet was despot of Medina, the Koran served as an official chronicle, well compared by Sprenger to the leading articles on current events in a ministerial organ. Where the continuous paragraph is substituted for the ejaculation, the divine author apologizes for the style. Entry: MAHOMET
_Ejection of Spores._--The spores are ejected from the apothecia and perithecia as in the fungi by forcible ejaculation from the asci. In the majority of forms it is clear that the soredia rather than the ascospore must play the more important part in lichen distribution as the development of the ordinary spores is dependent on their finding the proper alga on the substratum on which they happen to fall. In a number of forms (_Endocarpon pusillum_, _Stigmaatonima cataleptum_, various species of _Staurothele_), however, there is a special arrangement by which the spores are, on ejection, associated with gonidia. In these forms gonidia are found in connexion with the young fruit; such algal cells undergo numerous divisions becoming very small in size and penetrating into the hymenium among the asci and paraphyses. When the spores are thrown out some of these hymenial gonidia, as they are called, are carried with them. When the spores germinate the germ-tubes surround the algal cells, which now increase in size and become the normal gonidia of the thallus. Entry: A
_Carpoascomycetes._--The other divisions of the Ascomycetes may be distinguished as Carpoascomycetes because they do not bear the asci free on the mycelium but enclosed in definite fruit bodies or ascocarps. The ascocarps can be distinguished into two portions, a mass of sterile or vegetative hyphae forming the main mass of the fruit body, and surrounding the fertile ascogenous hyphae which bear at their ends the asci. When the ascogonium (female organ) is present the ascogenous hyphae arise from it, with or without its previous fusion with an antheridium. In other cases the ascogenous hyphae arise directly from the vegetative hyphae. In connexion with this condition of reduction a fusion of nuclei has been observed in _Humaria rutilans_ and is probably of frequent occurrence. The asci may be derived from the terminal cell of the branches of the ascogenous hyphae, but usually they are derived from the penultimate cell, the tip curving over to form the so-called crozier. By this means the ascus cell is brought uppermost, and after the fusion of the two nuclei it develops enormously and produces the ascospores. The ascospores escape from the asci in various ways, sometimes by a special ejaculation-mechanism. The Ascomycetes, at least the Carpoascomycetes, exhibit a well-marked alternation of sexual and asexual generations. The ordinary mycelium is the gametophyte since it bears the ascogonia and antheridia when present; the ascogenous hyphae with their asci represent the sporophyte since they are derived from the fertilized ascogonium. The matter is complicated by the apogamous transition from gametophyte to sporophyte in the absence of the ascogonium; also by the fact that there are normally two fusions in the life-history as mentioned earlier. If there are two fusions one would expect two reductions, and Harper has suggested that the division of the nuclei into eight in the ascus, instead of into four spores as in most reduction processes, is associated with a _double_ reduction process in the ascus. Miss Fraser in _Humaria rutilans_ finds two reductions: a normal synaptic reduction in the first nuclear division of the ascus, and a peculiar reduction division termed _brachymeiosis_ in the third ascus division. Entry: FIG
He had to keep still long after she went to bed, for she kept making broken-hearted ejaculations from time to time, tossing unrestfully, and turning over. But at last she was still, only moaning a little in her sleep. Now the boy stole out, rose gradually by the bedside, shaded the candle-light with his hand, and stood regarding her. His heart was full of pity for her. He took out his sycamore scroll and placed it by the candle. But something occurred to him, and he lingered considering. His face lighted with a happy solution of his thought; he put the bark hastily in his pocket. Then he bent over and kissed the faded lips, and straightway made his stealthy exit, latching the door behind him.
I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh! what is it?"--"Who is hurt?"--"What has happened?"--"Fetch a light!"--"Is it fire?"--"Are there robbers?"--"Where shall we run?" was demanded confusedly on all hands. But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable.
Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.
And so forth and so on. There was a buzz of gratification from time to time during the reading, accompanied by whispered ejaculations of "How sweet!" "How eloquent!" "So true!" etc., and after the thing had closed with a peculiarly afflicting sermon the applause was enthusiastic.
Capgrave was an indefatigable student, and was reputed one of the most learned men of his age. The bulk of his works are theological: sermons, commentaries and lives of saints. His reputation as a hagiologist rests on his _Nova legenda Angliae_, or _Catalogus_ of the English saints, but this was no more than a recension of the _Sanctilogium_ which the chronicler John of Tinmouth, a monk of St Albans, had completed in 1366, which in its turn was largely borrowed from the _Sanctilogium_ of Guido, abbot of St Denis. The _Nova legenda_ was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1516 and again in 1527. Capgrave's historical works are _The Chronicle of England_ (from the Creation to 1417), written in English and unfinished at his death, and the _Liber de illustribus Henricis_, completed between 1446 and 1453. The latter is a collection of lives of German emperors (918-1198), English kings (1100-1446) and other famous Henries in various parts of the world (1031-1406). The portion devoted to Henry VI. of England is a contemporary record, but consists mainly of ejaculations in praise of the pious king. The accounts of the other English Henries are transferred from various well-known chroniclers. The _Chronicle_ was edited for the "Rolls" Series by Francis Charles Hingeston (London, 1858); the _Liber de illustrious Henricis_ was edited (London, 1858) for the same series by F.C. Hingeston, who published an English translation the same year. The editing of both the works is very uncritical and bad. Entry: CAPGRAVE
Any one who has taken the trouble to trace the history of one of the modern schools of economists, or of any branch of economic science, knows how difficult it is to say when it began. "Anticipations" of method and doctrine can generally be found by the diligent investigator in the economic literature of his own or a foreign country. So that cross-sections of the stream of economic thought will reveal the existence, at different times, in varying proportions and at different stages of development, of most of the modern "schools." Again, the classification of an economic bibliography at once shows how varied has been the character of economic investigation, ranging from the most abstract speculation on the one hand to almost technical studies of particular trades on the other. Of the great army of writers who flourished in the first half of the 19th century some were closely identified with the utilitarian school, and the majority were influenced in a greater or less degree by the prevailing ideas of that school. Others, however, were hostile to it. In many works, such as those of a statistical or historical character, there are frequently to be found passages which could have been written in no other period, but are only of the nature of ejaculations and do not affect the argument. In stating the position of economics during this time we cannot ignore all writers, except these who belonged to one group, however eminent that group may have been, simply because they did not represent the dominant ideas of the period, and exercised no immediate and direct influence on the movement of economic thought. We must include the pioneers of the historical school, the economic historians, the socialists, the statisticians, and others whose contributions to economics are now appreciated, and without whose labours the science as we know it now would have been impossible. If we take this broadly historical view of the progress of economics, it is obvious that even in England there was no general agreement, during the 19th century, as to the methods most appropriate to economic investigation. Entry: ECONOMICS
The news was carried overseas to Henry, who was then in Normandy. It roused one of the fits of wild rage to which he was not unfrequently liable; he burst out into ejaculations of wrath, and cursed "the cowardly idle servants who suffered their master to be made the laughing-stock of a low-born priest." Among those who stood about him were four knights, some of whom had personal grudges against Becket, and all of whom were reckless ruffians, who were eager to win their master's favour by fair means or foul. They crossed the Channel with astonishing speed; two days after the king's outburst they stood before Becket at Canterbury and threatened him with death unless he should remove the excommunications and submit to his master. The archbishop answered with words as scornful as their own, and took his way to the minster to attend vespers. The knights went out to seek their weapons, and when armed followed him into the north transept, where they fell upon him and brutally slew him with many sword-strokes (December 29, 1170). Thomas had been given time to fly, and his followers had endeavoured to persuade him to do so. It seems that he deliberately courted martyrdom, anxious apparently that his death should deal the king the bitterest blow that it was in his power to inflict (see BECKET). Entry: II
This is but one specimen of the pious ejaculations, which in the first centuries were rising from the lips of thousands of _mystae_, in Egypt, Asia Minor, Italy and elsewhere. The idea of re-birth was in the air; it was the very keynote of all the solemn initiations and mysteries--Mythraic, Orphic, Eleusinian--through which repentant pagans secured pardon and eternal bliss. Yet there is not much evidence that the church directly borrowed many of its ceremonies or interpretations from outside sources. They for the most part originated among the believers, and not improbably the outside cults borrowed as much from the church as it from them. Entry: 14
ii. Every man who professes Islam is required in ordinary life to pray five times in each day. In the Koran these prayers are commanded, though four only are mentioned. "Wherefore glorify God, when the evening overtaketh you, and when ye rise in the morning, and unto Him be praise in Heaven and earth; and in the evening and when ye rest at noon" (xxx. 16-17), but commentators say the "evening" includes the sunset and after sunset. The five times therefore are: (1) Dawn or just before sunrise, (2) just after noon, (3) before sunset, (4) just after sunset, and (5) just after the day has closed. Tradition decides within what limits the recitals may be delayed without impairing their validity. Prayer is preceded by the lesser ablution (_wadu_) consisting in the washing of face, hands (to the elbows) and feet in prescribed manner. Complete washing of the body (_ghusl_) is required only after legal pollution. In prayer the worshipper faces the _qibla_ (direction of prayer), which was at first Jerusalem, but was changed by the Prophet to Mecca. In a mosque the _qibla_ is indicated by a niche (_mihrab_) in one of the walls. The prayers consist of prescribed ejaculations, petitions, and the recital of parts of the Koran, always including the first _sura_, accompanied by prostrations of the body. Detailed physical positions are prescribed for each part of the worship; these vary slightly in the four orthodox schools (see below). On a journey, in time of war or in other special circumstances, the set form of prayers may be modified in accordance with appointed rules. Besides these private prayers, there is the prayer of the assembly, which is observed on a Friday (_yaum ul-jam'a_, "the day of assembly") in a mosque, and is usually accompanied by an address or declamation (_khutba_) delivered from a step of the pulpit (_minbar_). Special prayers are also prescribed for certain occasions, as on the eclipse of the sun or the moon, &c. Among the Sufis special attention is given to informal prayer, consisting chiefly in the continual repetition of the name of God (_dhikr_) (see SUFI'ISM). This is still a characteristic of some of the dervish (q.v.) communities. Entry: 4
A distinct subdivision of Nabataean is found in the Sinaitic peninsula, chiefly in the Wadi Firan and Wadi Mukattib, which lay on the caravan route. The inscriptions are rudely scratched or punched on the rough rock, without any sort of order, and some of them are accompanied by rude drawings. A few only are dated, but, as shown by de Vogüé in the _C.I.S._ (ii. 1, p. 353), they must all belong to the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. This accounts for the fact that already in the 6th century Cosmas Indicopleustes[17] has no correct account of their origin, and ascribes them to the Israelites during their wanderings in the wilderness.[18] They were first correctly deciphered as Nabataean by Beer in 1848, when they proved to consist chiefly of proper names (many of them of Arabic formation), accompanied by ejaculations or blessings. It is clear that they are not the work of pilgrims either Jewish or Christian,[19] nor are they of a religious character. The frequent recurrence of certain names shows that only a few generations of a few families are represented, and these must have belonged to a small body of Nabataeans temporarily settled in the particular Wadis, no doubt for purposes connected with the caravan-traffic. The form of the Nabataean character in which they are written is interesting as being the probable progenitor of the Kufic Arabic alphabet. Entry: A
Space forbids the discussion of other inscriptions found on vases, which include those descriptive of subjects or persons, ejaculations uttered by the figures, convivial exclamations, or the [Greek: kalos] names discussed below; all these are painted on the designs themselves. There is also another class of _graffiti_ inscriptions, which includes those incised by the owners with their names and memoranda scratched under the foot, probably made by the potter or his workmen relating to the number of vases in a batch or "set" and their price. Entry: FIG
GRESSET, JEAN BAPTISTE LOUIS (1709-1777), French poet and dramatist, was born at Amiens on the 29th of August 1709. His poem _Vert Vert_ is his main title to fame. He spent, however, the last twenty-five years of his life in regretting the frivolity which enabled him to produce this most charming of poems. He was brought up by the Jesuits of Amiens. He was accepted as a novice at the age of sixteen, and sent to pursue his studies at the Collège Louis le Grand in Paris. After completing his course he was appointed, being then under twenty years of age, to a post as assistant master in a college at Rouen. He published _Vert Vert_ at Rouen in 1734. It is a story, in itself exceedingly humorous, showing how a parrot, the delight of a convent, whose talk was all of prayers and pious ejaculations, was conveyed to another convent as a visitor to please the nuns. On the way he falls among bad companions, forgets his convent language, and shocks the sisters on arrival by profane swearing. He is sent back in disgrace, punished by solitude and plain bread, presently repents, reforms and is killed by kindness. The story, however, is nothing. The treatment of the subject, the atmosphere which surrounds it, the delicacy in which the little prattling ways of the nuns, their jealousies, their tiny trifles, are presented, takes the reader entirely by surprise. The poem stands absolutely unrivalled, even among French _contes en vers_. Entry: GRESSET
None of Herbert's English poems was published during his lifetime. On his death-bed he gave to Nicholas Ferrar a manuscript with the title _The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations_. This was published at Cambridge, apparently for private circulation, almost immediately after Herbert's death, and a second imprint followed in the same year. On the title-page of both is the quotation "In his Temple doth every man speak of his honour." _The Temple_ is a collection of religious poems connected by unity of sentiment and inspiration. Herbert tried to interpret his own devout meditations by applying images of all kinds to the ritual and beliefs of the Church. Nothing in his own church at Bemerton was too commonplace to serve as a starting-point for the epigrammatic expression of his piety. The church key reminds him that "it is my sin that locks his handes," and the stones of the floor are patience and humility, while the cement that binds them together is love and charity. The chief faults of the book are obscurity, verbal conceits and a forced ingenuity which shows itself in grotesque puns, odd metres and occasional want of taste. But the quaint beauty of Herbert's style and its musical quality give _The Temple_ a high place. "The Church Porch," "The Agony," "Sin," "Sunday," "Virtue," "Man," "The British Church," "The Quip," "The Collar," "The Pulley," "The Flower," "Aaron" and "The Elixir" are among the best known of these poems. Herbert and Keble are the poets of Anglican theology. No book is fuller of devotion to the Church of England than _The Temple_, and no poems in our language exhibit more of the spirit of true Christianity. Every page is marked by transparent sincerity, and reflects the beautiful character of "holy George Herbert." Entry: HERBERT
GOSPEL OF BARNABAS.--We read in antiquity, _e.g._ in the _Decretum Gelasii_, of an apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas (see APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE), but we have no knowledge of its contents. There exists, however, in a single MS. in Italian a longish gospel with this title, written from a Mahommedan standpoint, but probably embodying materials partly Gnostic in character and origin. The Italian MS. was found by the Deist, John Toland, in a private collection at Amsterdam (see his _Nazarenus_, 1718); subsequently it came into the possession of Prince Eugene of Savoy, and finally was obtained with Eugene's library by the imperial library at Vienna. It has been edited, with an English translation (1907) by (Rev.) Lonsdale and Laura Ragg, who hold that it was the work of a Christian renegade to Mahommedanism about the 13th-16th century. See also preliminary notice in the _Journal of Theol. Studies_, vi. 424 ff. The old view held by Toland and others that the Italian was a translation from the Arabic is demonstrably wrong. The Arabic marginal notes are apparently partly pious ejaculations, partly notes for the aid of Arabic students. The work is highly imaginative and often grotesque, but it is pervaded by an unusually high ethical enthusiasm. Entry: GOSPEL