Imbros

“ But the impaled arms were not depicted upon a lozenge, but upon a shield, and the shield was surmounted by the true lover's knot of blue ribbon.
I have already stated that when the rules of arms were in the making the possibility of a married woman bearing arms in her own right was quite ignored, and theoretically even now the husband bears his wife's arms for her upon his shield. But the arms of a man are never depicted suspended from a true lover's knot. ”

“ On each slab an individual wearing elaborate insignia is represented as standing with one arm raised and his head thrown back in the act of gazing upwards towards a celestial figure which seems to be descending towards him. The arms and heads of these nobly conceived figures are visible, but in each case the faces seem to issue from a highly ornate symbol, which is different in each one, just as the insignia of each individual also varies in detail. ”

“ The Imp seemed much cast down and even shocked.
"But there was the Black Knight," he said, brightening suddenly; "Richard of the Lion Heart, you know--he never did!"
"Not while he was fighting, of course, but afterwards, if history is to be believed, he very frequently did; and we are all alike, Imp--everybody does sooner or later."
"But why? Why should anyone want to put their arm round a girl, Uncle Dick?"
"For the simple reason that the girl is there to put it round, I suppose. And now, Imp, let us talk of fish." ”

“ Red.
“Hullo, Emperor!” said the Doctor, “what’s the game now? If you want a gladiatorial show, with me and these two swashbucklers as chief performers, you ought to have given me fair notice. You can’t expect a man to put up much of a fight when he’s caught from behind just as he’s in the middle of whistling a tune.”
“You have learned too much,” said Mr. Red, with fierce intensity. [24] “It is necessary in the interests of the Brotherhood to secure your silence.”
“Right,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You shall secure it. One hundred and fifty pounds down and the secrets of the Brotherhood are safe. ”

“ In the bend, pale, pile, cross, chief, and fess, when these are described as engrailed the enclosing lines of the ordinary, other than the edges of the shield, are all composed of these small semicircles with the points turned outwards, and the word "outwards" must be construed as pointing away from the centre of the ordinary when it is depicted. In the case of a chief the points are turned downwards, but it is rather difficult to describe the use of the term when used as a partition line of the field. ”

“ If the father possess the quarterly coat of, say, four quarterings, which are debruised by a label by the heir-apparent, and the mother die, and the heir-apparent succeed to her arms, he would of course, after his father's death, arrange his mother's quarterings with these, placing his father's pronominal arms 1 and 4, the father's quartering in the second quarter, and the mother's arms in the third quarter. ”

“ Each corps has a uniform of its own, and all are of rich material, brilliant in color, and exceedingly picturesque; for they are survivals of the vanished costumes of the Middle Ages, and they reproduce for us the time when men were beautiful to look at. ”

“ When a shield consists of more than one tincture, and the partition is formed by a line drawn in the direction of any of the ordinaries, it is said to be party per that ordinary: thus, Fig. 2 is Party per pale, gules and azure; Fig. 3, Party per less, purpure and gules. A shield, however, is never party per chief, or of any of the diminutives of the ordinaries. ”

“ There were a couple of men at my elbow. I don't in the least know what they were—perhaps marquises, perhaps railway employees—one never can tell over there. One of them was tall and blond, with a heavy, bow-shaped red moustache—Irish in type; the other of no particular height, excellently groomed, dark, and exemplary. I knew he was exemplary from some detail of costume that I can't remember—his gloves or a strip of silk down the sides of his trousers—something of the sort. ”

“ In that brief pause and scrutiny he recognized the purport of a division, for as each newcomer stepped to the left or the right of the centre aisle he thereby proclaimed himself a Carr or a Gregory—taking shrewd thought of clan-mobilization. Then as a low drone of talk went up from the body of the house and a restless shuffling of feet, the speaker and his reception committee could not escape the realization of an ugly tension; of an undertow of anxiety moving deep beneath the surface affectation of calm. ”

“ In the right-hand compartment of the upper division is a squatting human figure in black on a blue-ground, doubtless representing some deity. He has a fiery red mouth and a very prominent nose, and is holding by the hand a cord, which passes round a character at his feet, probably representing a peddler's pack. ”

“ It is a striking fact that by far the larger number of the ancient standards display as the chief device not the arms but one of the supporters, and I am inclined to think that in this fact we have further confirmation of my belief that the origin of supporters is found in the badge.
Even after the use of two supporters had become general, a third figure is often found placed behind the shield, and forms a connecting link with the old practice of filling the void spaces on seals, to which we have already referred. ”

“ When a great number of quarterings are charged upon the shield, the order in which these quarterings are marshalled1 or arranged is very important, the original arms being always placed in the upper dexter of the field—that being the most honourable point—and the other arms following in the sequence in which they were introduced into the family coat of arms. ”

“ It was a noble gathering of the fairest and the swiftest, each bearing at the bow the carved emblem of her name, as in a gallery of plaster-casts, figures of women with mural crowns, women with flowing robes, with gold fillets on their hair or blue scarves round their waists, stretching out rounded arms as if to point the way; heads of men helmeted or bare ”

“ Since the clan cannot exist without a name and an emblem, and since this emblem is always before the eyes of men, it is upon this, and the objects whose image it is, that the sentiments which society arouses in its members are fixed. Men were thus compelled to represent the collective force, whose action they felt, in the form of the thing serving as flag to the group. ”

“ There is something engaging as well as pathetic in these unruffled countenances, blind to the realities of modern life and the need of that fraternal fellowship which alone can bring peace to the head that wears a crown or a coronet. ”

“ The register duly signed, and all formalities over and done, we go out into the sunshine; and once more the aged woman, richer now by half a crown, is reduced to mute astonishment, so that speech is beyond her, when the Imp, lifting his feathered cap, politely wishes her "good morning." ”

“ Close to our elbow stood our new friend in the form of a tall ugly boy about seventeen, habited in a green cloth surtout, with plaited plaid unmentionables, broad-toed boots, and a peculiar appearance about the wrists, and intervals between the fingers, which made us shudder at the thought of extending to him the hand of fellowship. ”

“ If married to a Commoner, a Peeress in her own right bears her own arms on a lozenge as before, and her husband marshals her arms ensigned with her coronet in pretence on his Shield: and this lozenge and Shield are grouped together, the lozenge yielding precedence. ”

“ If we include the many instances of the human head and the human figure which exist as crests, and also the human figure as a supporter, probably it or its parts will be nearly as frequently met with in armory as the lion; but if crests and supporters be disregarded, and the human figure be simply considered as a charge upon the shield, it is by no means often to be met with. ”

“ When we come to sub-ordinaries, the confusion is still more apparent, for as far as I can see the only reason for the classification is the tabulating of rules concerning the lines of partition. The bordure and the orle can be, and often are, engrailed or embattled; the fret, the lozenge, the fusil, the mascle, the rustre, the flanche, the roundel, the billet, the label, the pairle, it would be practically impossible to meddle with; and all these figures have at some time or another, and by some writer or other, been included amongst either the ordinaries or the sub-ordinaries. ”

“ Archbishops and bishops impale the paternal arms with the arms of the see over which they preside, placing the arms of the bishopric on the dexter, and their paternal arms on the sinister side of the shield; a bishop does not emblazon the arms of his wife on the same shield with that which contains the arms of the see, but on a separate shield. ”

“ Shoulder Marks.—The shoulder marks worn on the shoulders of the white service coat and also upon the shoulders of the overcoat to indicate the rank and corps of the wearer are five inches long and two and a quarter inches wide, covered with dark blue cloth, and decorated with gold stripes and corps insignia to indicate the rank and corps of the wearer, these stripes and insignia being the same for the various ranks and corps as those worn on the sleeves of the full dress coat as previously described. ”

“ The leader is a godlike figure nearly seven feet high, clad in short tunic and shoes with turned-up toes. His left leg is forward and his left arm is advanced; the right arm is drawn back, and, the face being in profile to the left, we have here an illustration of the convention familiar also in Egyptian drawing, whereby the front view of the upper part of the body is seen, while the head and limbs are reproduced in profile. ”

“ In Scotland the arms, and the arms only, constitute the mark of a given family, and whilst due difference is made in the respective shields, no attempt is made as regards crest or supporters to impose any distinction between the figures granted to different families even where no blood relationship exists. ”

“ The fraternity’s color is light blue. The badge is a Greek cross, in the centre of which is placed a circular disk displaying the letters “ΚΣΚ.” The arms of the cross are chased, and the disk is either jewelled or plain. ”

“ That when any brother of the said Fraternity dies the brethren of the said Fraternity shall go on the Vigil to the dirge, and on the day31 to the Mass, and to the dirge and to the mass of the month’s obit, and that each such brother dead have thirty masses from their common box,32 and that each brother who is absent without reasonable excuse at any of the said four times, shall put into their common box in place of his offerings and expenses, as he ought to have done if he had been present, three pence. ”

“ The charter proceeded to create the fraternity or guild a corporation by the name of the Fraternity or Guild of St. George of the Men of the Mystery of Armourers of the city of London, and to empower them to receive and accept any persons to be such chaplain and poor persons, according to the rules of the more noble and worthy part of the said brothers and sisters and their successors, to be in that behalf made. ”

“ The organization is very cunningly contrived. The Brotherhood is made up in groups of ten. No one of the rank and file knows more than nine other members associated with him. The leaders of these groups of ten are selected by a higher power. These leaders are again organized in groups of ten, under a leader again selected by a higher power; but in this second group of ten no man knows his fellow's name or face; they meet always masked. And so the scale rises. The highest body of all is a group of one hundred, selected out of the whole force by an executive committee. ”

“ COLLARED. Having a collar. Dogs and inferior animals are sometimes collared: the supporters and charges are generally said to be gorged. See GORGED.
COMBATANT. A French word for fighting. See LION.
COMPLEMENT. The Heraldic term for the full moon. When this figure is introduced as a charge in a coat of arms, it is called a moon in her complement.
COMPONY. A term applied to a bordure, pale, bend, [Page 61] or any other ordinary, made up of squares of alternate metal and colour.
Ex. Argent, an inescutcheon azure, border compony, or and gules. ”

“ We see the wound upon each foot, with wavy marks to imitate the flowing blood, but no trace of a nail. Nails, however, transfix the hands. The arms are separate from the trunk, but the suppedaneum on which the feet are resting is of a single piece with the body of the figure.
The surface of the cross, especially about the borders, contains elaborate decoration, including animals and foliage. ”

“ With the exception of the second badge, which is on a striped background of green and white, all the party backgrounds are party per pale, which was the most usual way of depicting a livery in the few records which have come down to us of the heraldic use of livery colours, and of the eighteen badges, no less than eight are upon a parti-coloured field of which the dexter is sable and the sinister gules. ”

“ Yet the division appears in another form, since the hero is ready to share his child with the red-haired man, a trait connected with the theme of Amis and Amiloun.30 Irish II. is in some respects more changed, and in some respects less, than Irish I. The agreement to divide is changed to a promise that the green man shall have the first kiss of [65] the bride. On the other hand, the serpents in the woman’s body are retained, a trait which is very primitive and very important in enabling us to identify the position of these variants. ”