Damis

“ The gods suspend their own debate and listen anxiously to the mortals. What need to describe the course of the controversy? Timocles storms; Damis blandly presses his points; Timocles is hopelessly discomfited, amid the jeers of the multitude; and Damis runs away in fits of laughter, followed by Timocles, pouring forth a torrent of insulting language, and threatening to break his head with a potsherd.
II. Lucian's mockery of the pagan gods is an unrestrained exercise of wit and humour. ”

“ It is better that one or that many be lost than that all be lost."
Damis bowed his head in silence. Raised by the Jovians whose only ideal of life was their own selfish pleasure, the thought that the fate of thousands whom he did not know and in whom he felt little interest could be of more importance than the fate of the one whose safety meant more than life to him was a novel one. The lifelong training he had received from the Sons of God struggled, and struggled in vain, against the ideals he had inherited from his Earthly mother and his loved sire. ”

“ Are the desires of a half-breed bastard to stand above the [369] wishes of the ruler of the planet?"
"It is true that the mother of Damis was a Daughter of Man," said the equerry quietly, "yet Hortan married her in honor. Damis is a man of great influence and it would be well to reflect before you rob him of his chosen bride. There is wide discontent with our rule which needs only a leader to flare up. Remember that we are few and Jupiter is far away."
"Havenner, you talk like a frightened woman," sneered the Viceroy. "Let him join the ranks of the malcontents. For my part, I hope they revolt. ”

“ For a moment Glavour staggered and then his hand fell on Damis' shoulder. Exerting all of his huge strength, he pulled his opponent toward him and threw his massive arms about him. Damis made no attempt to wriggle out of the bone-crushing grip, but, instead, threw his arms about the Jovian and matched muscle against muscle. The Jovian guards, who had witnessed the feats of strength which were the Viceroy's boast, expected only one outcome, but to Havenner, who recalled that Hortan, the father of Damis, had been one of the mightiest men of Jupiter, the issue was not a foregone conclusion. ”

“ The head of the community is called Iarchas, a totally un-Indian name. The violence done to all foreign names by the Greeks is notorious, and here we have to reckon with an army of ignorant copyists as well as with Philostratus and Damis. I would suggest that the name may perhaps be a corruption of Arhat.99
The main burden of Damis’ narrative insists on the psychic and spiritual knowledge of the sages. They know what takes place at a distance, they can tell the past and future, and read the past births of men. ”

“ If his disciples admire him, they cannot exceed his admiration of himself. He is constantly in an attitude—he becomes intolerable. He is full of mannerisms, and is artificial from head to foot. Ever boastful, his controversies are more like the hectorings of a bully. He is the Don Quixote of religious and moral perfection. Damis might well be called his Sancho Panza ”

“ He also said that the world was to be regarded as a living being of both sexes, having a more ardent love for itself than that of one person to another, being united and bound to itself. Damis learnt much from his intercourse with the Brahmins, but he wrote that at the secret discourses Apollonius was alone with Iarchas, and from there originated the four books written by the former. ”

“ They were protected by their innate spiritual power, of which we have so many instances in Indian literature; and yet they possessed nothing but what all men possess if they would but develop the spiritual part of their being. But this explanation is not simple enough for Philostratus, and so he presses into 87service all the memories of Damis, or rather travellers’ tales, about levitation, magical illusions and the rest. ”

“ Dam'ian, a squire attending on the Grand-Master of the Knights Templars.—Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.) .
Damiot'ti (Dr. Baptisti) , a Paduan quack, who exhibits "the enchanted mirror" to Lady Forester and Lady Bothwell. They see therein the clandestine marriage and infidelity of Sir Philip Forester.—Sir W. Scott, Aunt Margaret's Mirror (time, William III.) . Damis [Dah.me] , son of Orgon and Elmire (2 syl.) , impetuous and self-willed.—Molière, Tartuffe (1664) .
Damn with Faint Praise.
Damn with faint praise, assent with evil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer. ”

“ Daae, a Scythian tribe, 5, 79 Dalmatians, 12, 5; 32, 18, 23 Damasippus, a Macedonian, 31, 26 Damippus, a Lacedaemonian, 7, 5 Damis, an Athenian ambassador, 21, 31 Damon, ambassador from Ptolemy Philometor, 28, 1 Damon, a Rhodian ambassador, 29, 18 Damocles, a spy in the service of Philip V., 13, 5 Damocritus of Calydon, an Aetolian ambassador, 18, 10 ”

“ How can I think I am one—alone—without Dami! I am not alone. Dami belongs to me and I to him. For Dami were it better,—better for him if he were under a father who would tell him, and teach him what is right. But canst thou not care for him thyself, when it is necessary? I see plainly that if he were once at home there, he would remain there his life long, and be nothing but a servant, a dog for strange people to kick. Who knows how the children of the uncle would treat us? As they are poor people themselves, would they not play the master towards us? ”

“ Damia paused; and gazed upwards as if in ecstasy, and it was not till a few minutes later that she went on, with a changed expression in her face: “Then my son’s widow, Mary, would be hatched out of a serpent’s egg and would creep a writhing asp.... Great gods! the ravens! What can they mean? They come again. Air, air! Wine! I cannot—I am choking—take it away!—To-morrow—to-day.... Everything is going; do you see—do you feel? It is all black—no, red; and now black again. Everything is sinking; hold me, save me; the floor is going from under me.—Where is Porphyrius? ”

“ With that, seeming to recognise the folly of resistance, Sir Damon sank back in his seat.
"What is't you want?" he asked in another voice.
"'Tis very simple," says t'other; "merely all that is in your chaise with you, save what clothes you sit in." And now that the man's head no longer blocked the window he pressed closer in, and at the same instant uttered an exclamation of surprise. And so I daresay did Sir Damon also, for he must have recognised by that saying with whom he had to deal; the which must have astonished him who came forth to see the young buck laid by the heels. ”

“ A pledge you did require, when Damon his suit did meve,
For which with heart and stretched hands most humble thanks I give:
And that you may not say but Damon hath a friend,
That loves him better than his own life, and will do to his end,
Take me, O mighty king: my life I pawn [75] for his:
Strike off my head, if Damon hap at his day to miss.
Dionysius. What art thou, that chargest me with my word so boldly here?
Pithias. I am Pithias, a Greek born, which hold Damon my friend full dear.
Dionysius. Too dear perhaps, to hazard thy life for him: what fondness [76] moveth thee? ”

“ Yet, in those hills that hung o'er Arcady,
Some roving inebriate Daimon
Begat him fair children
On nymphs of the vineyard,
On nymphs of the rock: —
And in the heart of the forest
Lay bound in white arms,
In action creative a father
Without a thought for his child: —
A purposeless god,
The forbear of men
To corrupt, ape, inherit and spoil
That fine race beforehand with doom!
No, Damon, what's an answer worth to one
Whose mind has been flung open? ”

“ There was blood between them and all mankind. Hassim remarked dispassionately that there was one white man with whom it would be wise to remain friendly; and besides, was not Daman his friend already? Daman smiled with half-closed eyes. He was that white man's friend, not his slave. The Illanuns playing with their sword-handles grunted assent. Why, asked Daman, did these strange whites travel so far from their country? The great white man whom they all knew did not want them. No one wanted them. Evil would follow in their footsteps. ”

“ Both to break my promise, and to suffer me to see thee die,
Whom so dearly I love: this small request grant me,
I shall never ask thee more, my desire is but friendly.
Do me this honour, that fame may report triumphantly,
That Pithias for his friend Damon was contented to die.
Damon. That you were contented for me to die, fame cannot deny;
Yet fame shall never touch me with such a villainy,
To report that Damon did suffer his friend Pithias for him guiltless to die;
Therefore content thyself, the gods requite thy constant faith,
None but Damon’s blood can appease Dionysius’ wrath. ”

“ The light-hearted gaiety of the father and the sardonic gravity of the son, offered a contrast too marked to be missed by the wits. Alexandre is Dumas fils, but you—you are not Dumas père—you never will be!" said "the Lady of the Camélias" to the great man. "He is a big child of mine, born when I was quite young," said the son. Each seemed to provoke wit in the other. The elder was one day dining with his son, who had taken a house where the trees in the garden quite blocked up the light. "Open your windows," said old Dumas, "and let your garden have a little fresh air!" ”

“ I have now come far enough to meet you on a common ground of fact; and I tell you that, to a mind not prejudiced by jealousy, all the reforms of the lazaretto, and even those which he most vigorously opposed, are properly the work of Damien. They are the evidence of his success; they are what his heroism provoked from the reluctant and the careless. Many were before him in the field; Mr. Meyer, for instance, of whose faithful work we hear too little: there have been many since; and some had more worldly wisdom, though none had more devotion, than our saint. ”

“ One sees to-day, among the men and women alike, the same distinction of type which Dumas took for his ideal, and one has only to climb any of the narrow stairlike streets which wind up from the sea-level to see the counterpart of Dantes’s Mercédès sitting or standing by some open doorway.
For a detailed, but not too lengthy, description of the manners and customs of the Catalans of Marseilles, one can not do better than turn to the pages of Dumas and read for himself what the great romancer wrote of the lovely Mercédès and her kind. ”

“ Into his mind she tries to instil her own spirit of independence. He finds service in a neighboring village, and she will not weep at parting with him until after he is gone, and then the world seems very empty to her. Dami is unjustly turned away from his situation and loses all his little belongings in a fire. He works for a while with a charcoal-burner, and then resolves to go to America. His sister secretly rejoices at his bold purpose, but reproves him severely when he wants to revenge himself upon the master who has discharged him. ”

“ Dami had to drive the animal he loved so much back with stones.
Dami was so ashamed of his ill luck, that he was unwilling to see any one; for it is the peculiarity of weak natures that they cannot feel any strength in themselves; when outwardly overcome, they [109] are conquered inwardly—they look upon ill success as a sign of their own weakness, and if they cannot conceal that, they conceal themselves.
At the first houses of the village Dami stopped. Mariann sent him a coat of her husband’s, who had been shot; but Dami felt an unconquerable repugnance to putting it on. ”

“ Damon took all that sort of work off our hands, in the most generous and chivalrous spirit imaginable. His eye was ever bright and ready; there was no sinking into dull student-like lethargy one moment, and flashing out into erratic folly the next; he was ready with lance in rest, to take a tilt against anybody's windmill; at home upon all subjects, being exactly in such a state of refinement as not to be ashamed to show his ignorance, and always eager to acquire information. Nor is his mind dull or unapt; he will rebut or ridicule an adversary with astonishing shrewdness. ”

“ She felt shy and strange as she made her low courtesy to the old lady; but Damia seemed to be pleased with the timid grace of her demeanor, for she offered her her hand—an honor she usually conferred only on her intimates, bid her stoop, and gave her a kiss, saying kindly: “You are a good brave girl. Fidelity to your friends is pleasing in the sight of the gods, and finds its reward even among men.”
Dada, obeying a happy impulse, threw herself on her knees before the old woman, kissed her hands, and then, sitting on her heels, nestled at her feet. ”

“ Damien has been too much depicted with a conventional halo and conventional features; so drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark or the pen to express the individual; or who perhaps were only blinded and silenced by generous admiration, such as I partly envy for myself—such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would envy on your bended knees. It is the least defect of such a method of portraiture that it makes the path easy for the devil’s advocate, and leaves for the misuse of the slanderer a considerable field of truth. ”

“ Damia, who only a few minutes since had spoken with such determined encouragement to her son, had terrible visions of the Imperial legions putting Olympius to rout, with the Libyans under Barkas and the Biamite rabble under Pachomius; storming the Serapeum and reducing it to ruin: Firebrands flying through its sacred halls, the roof giving way, the vaults falling in; the sublime image of the god—the magnificent work of Bryaxis—battered by a hail of stones, and sinking to mingle with the reeking dust. ”