Delft

“ Both these enthusiasts wrote before the picture opposite page 2 was exhibited, or their ecstasies might have been even more intense.
In the Senate House at Delft in 1641 John Evelyn the diarist saw “a mighty vessel of wood, not unlike a butter-churn, which the adventurous woman that hath two husbands at one time is to wear on her shoulders, her head peeping out at the top only, and so led about the town, as a penance”. I did not see this; but the punishment Page 60was not peculiar to Delft. At Nymwegen these wooden petticoats were famous too. ”

“ The gates of the place were shut against them, and the armed burghers of the town harshly repulsed the miserable wretches, who solicited shelter, warmth, and food. These unhappy beings were exposed, with their sores and diseases, to the aggravated evils of hunger and cold, experiencing at the hand of their allies a treatment more severe, than would have been their lot had they fallen into the power of the enemy.
Delft is famous in Holland for its beer breweries, as well as for its manufactures of porcelain; and I must acknowledge that London porter is imitated with tolerable success. ”

“ We have very pretty Dutch gardens, so called, in America, but their chief claim to being Dutch is that they are set with bulbs, and have Delft or other earthen pots or boxes for formal plants or shrubs. ”

“ The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into the town of Delft. The red gabled houses made a handsome show on either hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering and scrubbing at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from a hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break our fasts.
"Catriona," said I, "I believe you have yet a shilling and three baubees?"
"Are you wanting it?" said she, and passed me her purse. "I am wishing it was five pounds! What will you want it for?" ”

“ It seems thinly inhabited, and the Dutch themselves look upon it as a place where one will die of ennui. It has scarcely changed with two hundred years. The view of Delft by Van der Meer in the Museum at The Hague might have been painted yesterday. All the trees are dipt, for in artificial Holland every work of Nature is artificialized. ”

“ What land is this? Yon pretty town Is Delft, with all its wares displayed; The pride, the market-place, the crown And centre of the Potter's trade. ”

“ In the auto of December 21, 1625, there appeared Pieter Jan of Delft, who had been captured and condemned to death as a pirate, though the sentence was not executed. He refused to be converted and was sent to the galleys, but was subsequently liberated under a royal cédula as a prisoner of war. Fanaticism, however, was difficult to extinguish. When, about 1650, the Dutch endeavored to establish themselves at Valdivia, Viceroy Mancera sent a well-equipped fleet and army to drive them out. ”

“ The church has a tall steeple, surmounted by four small conical towers, which leans like the tower of Pisa, in consequence of the sinking of the ground. In a cell in this tower Gerard was confined on the night following the assassination.
At Rotterdam they had given me a letter for a citizen of Delft, requesting him to show me his house. "He desires," said the letter "to penetrate the mysteries of an old Dutch house: lift for a moment, for his benefit, the curtain of the sanctuary." I had no difficulty in finding the house, and when I saw it, I exclaimed: "This is what I want." ”

“ This industry was imported from Haarlem towards the end of the 16th century, and achieved an unrivalled position in the second half of the following century; but it did not survive the French occupation at the end of the 18th century. It has, however, been revived in modern times under the name of “New Delft.” Other branches of industry are carpet-weaving, distilling, oil and oil-cake manufacture, dyeing, cooperage and the manufacture of arms and bullets. There is also an important butter and cheese market. ”

“ Having entered warmly into the controversy between the Arminians and the Gomarists, he was involved in the misfortunes of the pensionary Barnevelt, and of the Arminian party; and the philosopher of Delft, after the execution of his political chief, was in 1619 condemned to perpetual imprisonment.
The horrors of the civil war which had desolated his country, brought home to his attention the cruelty and injustice of which, to use his own words, even barbarians might be ashamed. War was declared upon the slightest pretext, or without any pretext at all ”

“ Leaving Rotterdam, we pass on our left Delftshaven, from which a party of the Pilgrim Fathers sailed to America in 1620; then Schiedam, noted for its "schnapps," of which there are more than [Pg 219] two hundred distilleries; then Delft, where William the Silent, the immortal founder of Dutch independence, was assassinated by a Jesuit whom the Roman Catholic persecutors of the Netherlands had hired to rid them of their great foeman, but which, I fear, is better known to some of my readers as the place where a certain blue-glazed earthenware used to be made in imitation of Chinese porcelain ”

“ In 1563 he was appointed town physician, and rector of the Latin grammar school at Haarlem, which appointments he held until 1569. About this period he wrote Nomenclator, a lexicon in eight languages, and Batavia, a description of Holland. At various times he was formally invited to enter the service of the kings of Hungary, Poland and Denmark. William of Orange sent from Delft for his services as a physician: at a meeting of the deputies from the States, he nominated Junius as the historian of Holland. In 1574 he was made town physician at Middleburg, with a liberal salary and a free living. ”

“ George Delphin was not often given to serious thought—his nature was too frivolous and unstable; but to-day he felt that there must be a reckoning, and on the very verge of the sea he threw himself on the sand, which was now warmed by the afternoon sun. At first his thoughts surged like the billows over which he gazed. He was furious with Pastor Martens. Who could have believed that he, George Delphin, should have suffered himself to be supplanted by a chaplain, and, more than that, a widower? And Madeleine! how could she have accepted him? ”

“ Ancient Delphi lies out of sight in the hollow immediately behind the new village, and between it and the Castalian cliffs.
for guidance in the practical affairs of life than merely to gratify curiosity as to future events. The Delphian oracle originated, no doubt, in the superstitious awe which the place inspired as the supposed centre of the earth, possessed of mysterious cavities by which it was believed possible to hold communication with the dead. In the earliest times it was connected with the worship of the earth-goddess Gæa or Gē, who sheltered the dead in her bosom. ”

“ Delphi is memorable, but not because of wildness or terror. In retrospect it rises in my mind as a lonely place of light, gleaming on volcanic rocks and on higher rocks that are gray; of a few mighty plane-trees, pouring a libation of green toward olive-trees on the slopes beneath them; of a perpetual sweet sound of water. And beside the water travelers from the plain of Krissa, and travelers from Arachova, that wonderfully placed Parnassian village, renowned for its beautiful women, are pausing. They get down from their horses and mules to lave their hands and to drink. ”

“ The Delphic oracle, and some of the others, used for a long time to give their answers in verses. At last, however, irreverent critics of the period made so much fun of the peculiarly miserable style of this poetry, that the poor oracle gave it up and came down to plain prose. Every once in a while some energetic and cunning man, of skeptical character, insisted on having just such an answer as he wanted. It was well known that Philip of Macedon bought what responses he wished at Delphi. Anybody with plenty of money, who would quietly “see” the priests, could have such a response as he chose. ”

“ Dolph went on. “I imagine the poor fellow’s feelings when his appetite keeps on calling for another, and he sees his comrades holding up a tempting morsel on their forks, but none for him! It is a terrible thought.”
“Make your mind easy, old fellow. Never despair. See, I’m game enough to offer myself as the victim. I’ll take just four as my portion,” Teddy cried out.
“I refuse to accept the noble sacrifice. We’ll have to draw lots,” said Dolph, with [99] an air of determination; while Amos listened to the humorous dialogue with a broad smile of appreciation on his face. ”

“ Ergiesst sich über mein Herz,"
as Delphin said when he came into the room. The pleasure caused her by this compliment had to suffice her for the whole evening. She could no longer hide from herself that Delphin was in danger of slipping out of her hands; but she never reproached him, for she felt instinctively that as soon as anything of the kind arose between them, all would be over, and part from him she could not. ”

“ Sub-Lieutenant Delpos is a lover of its picturesqueness, of its color, its sun—we are in a deep sap lighted by a smoky candle—the sun means something to us, something fairylike and superhuman. To think that at that hour there are people living under clear skies, coming and going and breathing the strong sea breeze, and drinking in with their eyes that perpetual delight—a sunset on the rocks of Frioul! ”

“ GALEN says that man has seven bones in the sternum (instead of three) ; and Sylvius, in reply to Vesalius, contends that "in days of yore the robust chests of heroes had more bones than men now have."
GREENE (Robert) speaks of Delphos as an island; But Delphos, or rather Delphi, was a city of Phocis, and no island. "Six noblemen were sent to the isle of Delphos."—Donastus and Faunia. Probably he confounded the city of Delphi with the isle of Delos. ”

“ Delphine went below, and I set about my work. The obsequies of Cullom and his blacks were short, and showed no partiality of race. These finished, I threw off the turns of the halliards and lowered the sails. I had no fear of attack from the shore, but I looked under bow and stern to see that nobody was hiding there. Then I drew a bucket of water and washed and went below. Delphine greeted me with a smile, then blushed and looked away, for I was still stripped to the belt; and to a person who is in the habit of seeing daily nude brown skins, the sight of a white one is always startling. ”

“ The wisdom of the Delphian priests was revered and their judgments accepted much in the same way as were those of the seers who taught the children of Israel at the city gates. The Oracle of Delphi became potent—a name with which to conjure.
We know full well today that no priestess upon a tripod can reveal to us the secrets of the future. A thorough understanding of the past must be the safest guide for coming years. No vapor can inspire sudden revelations—the result only of faithful effort and earnest thought. ”

“ The truly adventurous may still approach Delphi over the ancient road by land from the eastward, doubtless the same highway that was taken by old King Laios when he was slain on his way to the oracle, all unwitting of the kinship, by his own son Œdipus,—possibly because of a dispute as to which should yield the road. ”

“ When I stood high up on the stadium at Delphi, the great scene described by the orator Æschines came fresh upon me, when he looked upon the sacred plain of Krissa, and called all the worshippers of the god to clear it of the sacrilegious Amphissians, who had covered it with cattle and growing crops. The plain, he says, is easily surveyed from the place of meeting—a statement which shows that the latter cannot have been in the town of Delphi: for a great shoulder of the mountain effectually hides the whole plain from every part of the town. ”

“ He was suddenly aroused by a tremendous bang; and although for the moment Dolph found himself unable to place himself, some sort of intuition caused him to feel for his gun, and crawl hastily out of the tent.
Amos had been just ahead of him, and was on his feet as Dolph appeared.
“What is it; more cats invading us?” demanded the latter, when he saw the figure of Teddy just beyond the fire, in the act of half raising his gun, as if tempted to shoot again. ”

“ Conrad laughed heartily and slapped Bancroft’s shoulder. “Why, Aleck,” said he, “the most satisfaction I’ve ever had comes out of knowing that I’m so hot on his tracks that I’ve got him buffaloed. Give it up? Not much! I’m going to lope down that trail at a two-minute gait, and Sumner L. Delafield is mighty soon going to wish he’d never been born.” ”

“ But supposing that this name and character had some relation to Delphi, how are we to account for other places being called after this manner? They could not all be umbilical: the earth cannot be supposed to have different centres: nor could the places thus named be always so situated, as to be central in respect to the nation, or the province in which they were included. ”

“ Grace looked appealingly at Miss Delmege, but the pince-nez were directed towards the roof, and Miss Delmege's elegantly curved fingers were engaged in swiftly unloading a tray of clean plates.
"A clean cloth for this tray, please," said Gracie rapidly. "There's been a spill."
Miss Delmege, appearing quite capable of seeing through the back of her head, still kept her back turned to the infuriated Miss Marsh, and said coldly: "How very messy, dear! But I'm sure you're not responsible for that. Some people are so strange; their fingers seem to be all thumbs." ”