Parsees

“ The Parsees, like most other oriental women, are in the habit of bringing water on their heads from the rivers and wells. They are well shaped, and almost as fair as Europeans. They have large black eyes, and aquiline noses. They are married very young, but generally remain with their parents some time after the wedding. The Parsees are allowed to [Pg 128] marry but one wife, and she must be of their own nation. ”

“ Parsees (i. e. inhabitants of Pars or Persia) , a name given to the disciples of Zoroaster or their descendants in Persia and India, and sometimes called Guebres; in India they number some 90,000, are to be found chiefly in the Bombay Presidency, form a wealthy community, and are engaged mostly in commerce; in religion they incline to deism, and pay homage to the sun as the symbol of the deity ”

“ The more opulent of the Parsees educate their sons at Cambridge and Oxford, and generally are great travelers. They dress in European costume, but never at home lay aside their Parsee hat, so characteristic of the sect. We were told it is never discarded by day or night. Caste does not separate them and animal food is not forbidden. ”

“ Towards the northern end of Malabar hill lie the Parsee Towers of Silence, where the Parsees expose their dead till the flesh is devoured by vultures, and then cast the bones into a well where they crumble into dust. ”

“ The Parsees possess in all about forty-nine names of Persian and twenty of Hindoo origin; hence there are always many persons bearing identical names. Further to distinguish between them, it has become customary to take as an atak, or distinguishing suffix, the name of a man's calling. ”

“ Ce sont des Perses de Fars, et de Chorasan."—Mandelslo (Paris, 1659) , 213.
1648.—"They (the Persians of India, i.e. Parsees) are in general a fast-gripping and avaricious nation (not unlike the Benyans and the Chinese) , and very fraudulent in buying and selling."—Van Twist, 48.
1653.—"Les Ottomans appellent gueuure vne secte de Payens, que nous connaissons sous le nom d'adorateurs du feu, les Persans sous celuy d'Atechperés, et les Indous sous celuy de Parsi, terme dont ils se nomment eux-mesmes."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 200. ”

“ All Parsis wear the sacred thread of serpent and phallic extraction, and the investiture of this is a solemn and essential rite with both sects [i.e., the Hindus and [565] Parsis] , showing their joint Aryan origin in high Asia, for the thread is of the very highest antiquity. The Parsi does not, however, wear his thread across the shoulder, and knows nothing of the all-but-forgotten origin of its required length. ”

“ For with Pascal the thought and the style penetrate each other inextricably and almost indistinguishably. You cannot print a smile, an inflection of the voice, a glance of the eye, a French shrug of the shoulders. And such modulations of the thought seem everywhere to lurk in the turns and phrases of Pascal’s inimitable French. To translate them is impossible.
Pascal is beyond question the greatest modern master of that indescribably delicate art in expression, which, from its illustrious ancient exemplar, has received the name of the Socratic irony. ”

“ Parsing is at his wit’s end to know what to do with it, ah! ah! Off! off!” he cried, changing his tone, and suddenly jerking himself out of the policeman’s hold. “Away! away!” he shouted, springing to the door; and before they could catch him he was indeed away, and they heard his “ha! ha! ha!” die away in the distance.
Serjeant Parsing then turned to the Schoolroom-shire folks, and asked them to mark off on their slates places for Mr. Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, and little Article, and a corner somewhere for tiresome Interjection ”

“ Ah, Pascal, my friend Pascal, your star of gold, for a moment hidden, shines at last in all its brilliancy. And she comes here under the pretext of a letter of credit. Come, come, Pascal, my friend, keep calm; one does not find such an opportunity twice in his life. Think now, if you are sly, you can take the mistress of the prince and the wife of the blond youth in the same net. ”

“ He waddled straight into the water and blew bubbles through his nose, leaving his skin on the beach.
Presently the Parsee came by and found the skin, and he smiled one smile that ran all round his face two times. Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands. Then he went to his camp and filled his hat with cake-crumbs, for the Parsee never ate anything but cake, and never swept out his camp. ”

“ Parsing, and I am sure you will take care to see that the verb always agrees with me in number and person.”
“Whenever it is proper that it should,” replied Serjeant Parsing, gravely.
“But it ought always to agree with my words when we are conjugating a verb together,” said Pronoun, eagerly; “that is the very reason why it is useful to conjugate verbs. In every tense you have the first person, second person, and third person in the singular number; and the first person, second person, and third person in the plural number ”

“ Which the Parsee-man bakes
Makes dreadful mistakes.
And there was a great deal more in that than you would think.
Because, five weeks later, there was a heat-wave in the Red Sea, and everybody took off all the clothes they had. The Parsee took off his hat; but the Rhinoceros took off his skin and carried it over his shoulder as he came down to the beach to bathe. In those days it buttoned underneath with three buttons and looked like a waterproof. He said nothing whatever about the Parsee's cake, because he had eaten it all ”

“ His clothes were of the strictest cleric cut, a parson’s waistcoat, a great high collar that was ever threatening to cut his ears off, but refused to do the deed out of sheer pity.
I cannot but think, heathen as I am, that a parson, of all men, should always be a well favored, as well favored in body as well as mind, a manly man, of whom God or nature need not be ashamed and to whom the people would listen without disgust or pity. ”

“ A sonnet of Wordsworth is a difficult thing to illustrate, but Mr. Parsons’ ripe taste has shown him the way. Then there are lovely morsels from his hand associated with the drawings of his friend Mr. Abbey—head-pieces, tailpieces, vignettes, charming combinations of flower and foliage, decorative clusters of all sorts of pleasant rural emblems. If he has an inexhaustible feeling for the country in general, his love of the myriad English flowers is perhaps the fondest part of it. ”

“ But the pound is in as bad a state as the stocks, thanks to your new-fashioned doctrines.”
“New-fashioned!” cried the Parson almost indignantly, for he had a great disdain of new fashions. “They are as old as Christianity; nay, as old as Paradise, which you will observe is derived from a Greek, or rather a Persian word, and means something more than ‘garden,’ corresponding (pursued the Parson rather pedantically) with the Latin vivarium—viz. grove or park full of innocent dumb creatures. Depend on it, donkeys were allowed to eat thistles there.”
“Very possibly,” said the Squire drily. ”

“ Thus Pascal's prose, like the verse of Malherbe and Corneille, is based upon reason; it is primarily intellectual. But, with Pascal, the intellect expresses itself even more exactly. The last vestiges of medieval ambiguities have been discarded; the style is perfectly modern. So wonderfully did Pascal master the resources of the great instrument which he had forged, that it is true to say that no reader who wishes to realize once for all the great qualities of French prose could do better than turn straight to the Lettres Provinciales. ”

“ And, like the parson, seems to say
To those beneath him, "Let us spray."
I like the Gargoyle best; it plays
So cheerfully on rainy days,
While parsons (no one can deny)
Are awful dampers—when they're dry. ”

“ M. Pascal did not care to talk; he shrugged his shoulders again, and continued his march toward the staircase without a word.
The porter, exasperated by this silence and this obstinacy, seized M. Pascal by the arm, and, speaking louder still, said:
"Must I tell you again, sir, that you cannot pass that way?"
"What do you mean, scoundrel?" cried M. Pascal, in a tone of contempt and anger, as if this outrage on the part of the porter was as insolent as inconceivable, "do you know to whom you are talking?" ”

“ I will remember,” said Serjeant Parsing, laughing. “Now please to stand back, and allow Mr. Pronoun to answer.—Mr. Pronoun, pray why do you use these particular six words, I, thou, he, we, you, and they, to make up Dr. Verb’s tenses?”
65 “I use I and we,” answered Pronoun, “to stand for the first person; thou and you to stand for the second person; and he and they to stand for the third person.”
“What do you mean by the first person?” asked Serjeant Parsing.
“My lord,” answered Mr. Pronoun, turning to Judge Grammar, “may I ask you who is the first person in Grammar-land?” ”

“ Parsons may be ranked among the earliest writers of our vernacular diction in its purity and pristine vigour, without ornament or polish. It is, we presume, Saxon English, unblemished by an exotic phrase. It is remarkable that our author, who passed the best part of his days abroad, and who had perfectly acquired the Spanish and the Italian languages, and slightly the French, yet appears to have preserved our colloquial English, from the vicissitudes of those fashionable novelties which deform the long unsettled Elizabethan prose. ”

“ And just now I was uncommonly pleased to find that, though you are a Parson, you don't want to keep a man's nose down to a shop-board, if he has any thing in him. You're not one of the aristocrats—"
"Indeed," said the Parson, with imprudent warmth, "it is not the character of the aristocracy of this country to keep people down. They make way among themselves for any man, whatever his birth, who has the talent and energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial boast of the British constitution, sir!"
"Oh, you think so, do you?" said Mr. Richard, looking sourly at the Parson. ”

“ All I said was I wasn’t talking!”
“Why, I see it,” said Parson. “He’s left out a semi-colon or something; the ‘he’s a beastly sneak’ means you, old man. ‘King meanly tells Parrett. He (that is, King) is a beastly sneak.’ That makes it all right.”
“Does it?” cried the indignant King—“does it make it all right! I’ll make it all right for him, I can promise him. I never sneaked of him in my life!”
“Wire in, old man, and get to the race,” urged Parson impatiently.
“Here, this looks like it,” said Telson, reading. “‘Being the boat-race no afternoon school I am pleased. ”

“ At sight of Old Weaver, Parson took his churchyard dust and boldly threw it in the face of the vision, and afore you could cross your heart the shadow had turned into a gert black dog—so dark as night. The poor beast whimpered and yowled something cruel, but Parson was short and stern with it, well knowing you can't have half measures with spirits, no more than you can with living men if you will to conquer 'em. ”

“ And seldom methinks a letter such goodly return might claim!
Then soon must the messengers ride hence—Parzival stood the host before,
And in French did he tell the story from Trevrezent learnt of yore,
How the Grail, throughout all ages, may never by man be known,
Save by him whom God calleth to It, whose name God doth know alone. 850
And the tale shall be told in all lands; no conflict may win that prize,
And 'tis vain on that Quest to spend them, since 'tis hidden from mortal eyes!' ”

“ But though, on these subjects, his pronouncements may in time grow stale or require correction, he will ever hold an honourable place in English literature as one of the most thoughtful and vigorous of those parson poets of whom this country has always had so large and valuable a supply.
[Pg 157] There is, indeed, a natural connection between parsons and poetry. It is precisely in the ranks of the clerical body in all civilized countries that one would look for successful cultivators of the art of verse. For what is, above all things, necessary for such cultivation? ”

“ In modern times, though for the most part the Parsis have found toleration and prosperity in 283India, yet an oppressed remnant of the race still keeps up the everlasting fires at Yezd and Kirman, in their old Persian land. The modern Parsis, as in Strabo’s time, scruple to defile the fire or blow it with their breath, they abstain from smoking out of regard not to themselves but to the sacred element, and they keep up consecrated ever-burning fires before which they do worship. ”

“ When the King's edict came to this out-of-the-way place, and the parson had read it from the pulpit, the lad wanted to try his luck. "He who nothing risks, nothing wins," thought the lad; and so he went to the parson and told him that if he would give him lessons in the evenings, he would work for this worship in the daytime, but he wanted to become so learned that he could try a bout with the King and his professors. ”

“ Parsons’ work which has nothing to do with the accidental—the simple fact that that work forms the richest illustration of the English landscape that is offered us to-day. Harper has for a long time past been full of Mr. Alfred Parsons, who has made the dense, fine detail of his native land familiar in far countries, amid scenery of a very different type. This is what the modern illustration can do when the ripeness of the modern sense is brought to it and the wood-cutter plays with difficulties as the brilliant Americans do to-day, following his original at a breakneck pace. ”