Pittacus

“ If one knew the Scythian philosopher Anacharsis no otherwise than by his apophthegms against wine and drunkenness, one would take him for the soberest man in the world, but we know very well that his theory varied very much upon this point, and no way agreed with his practice. One day above the rest, having got drunk at an entertainment given by Lybis, brother to Pittacus, he demanded the prize that was to be given to the greatest drinker. With which action, when he was afterwards reproached, he replied, “Can a man better signalize himself in battle than by glorious wounds? ”

“ Pitoíois was beautiful; she had a long neck, and her hair was black and so long that it touched the ground. She was the fastest worker in the world. She was always digging roots. With one dig she could bring up a whole basketful. In a day she dug over a large plain as though it had been ploughed. She piled up the roots, thought “I want them in my basket,” and they were there.
Pitoíois’ brothers were great hunters; while she was digging roots, they were hunting for deer, but they never got out of sight of their sister, for they thought Wus might come and bother her. ”

“ There are about fifty species, divided into a number of genera, confined to the Old World, and ranging from India and North China to Australia, New Guinea and New Britain, with one species in West Africa, the greatest number being found in Borneo and Sumatra. Few birds can vie with the pittas in brightly-contrasted coloration. Deep velvety black, pure white and intensely vivid scarlet, turquoise-blue and beryl-green—mostly occupying a considerable extent of surface—are found in a great many of the species—to say nothing of other composite or intermediate hues ”

“ Because Pittsburg stood at the head of the Ohio it was a door to the whole Mississippi valley, and men and goods quickly found their way to it. Once there a boat would take them over thousands of miles of river, or to New Orleans and the open sea.
Henry Clay used to tell in Congress a good story about Pittsburg. He said that a ship built at Pittsburg sailed down the river, through the gulf, across the Atlantic, into the Mediterranean, and anchored at Leghorn. ”

“ Pittsburg, a city and capital of Alleghany county, Pennsylvania, two hundred and ninety-seven miles west by north of Philadelphia, is situated on a beautiful plain at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers. It is built on the old site of the famous fort Du Quesne, whose ruins are still seen in the neighborhood. The situation of Pittsburg is as advantageous as can well be imagined; it is the key to the western country, and, excepting New Orleans and Cincinnati, is the first town of the whole valley of the Mississippi. ”

“ Pipits, of which over fifty species have been described, occur in almost all parts of the world, but in North America are represented by only two species—Neocorys spraguii, the prairie-lark of the north-western plains, and Anthus ludovicianus, the American titlark, which last is very nearly allied to the so-called water-pipit of Europe, A. spipoletta. To most English readers the best known species of pipit is the titlark or meadow-pipit, A. pratensis, a bird too common to need description, and abundant on pastures, moors, and uncultivated districts generally ”

“ Daffodil was cheery and helpful. Grandmere was not as well as usual. She said she was growing old. There was a great deal of outside business for the men. Pittsburg was a borough town, and its citizens were considering various industries. Every day almost, new things came to the fore, and now they were trying some experiments in making glass. The country round was rich in minerals. Boat-building required larger accommodations. ”

“ In the sketch Æneas wears a tight doublet and close cap. He looks, what he was, a young man going forth to seek his fortune. In the fresco he is dressed in a mantle and broad hat, to make the future Pope more imposing. The letter which he carried to Capranica has been placed in his hand. The storm from which Æneas escaped has been merely indicated in the drawing. In the fresco, lowering clouds and a rainbow are added. A dog, the greyhound of which Pintoricchio was so fond, has been introduced, standing perfectly still though in the leash of a galloping rider. ”

“ We broke down innumerable times in the dismal recesses of the forests, were sheltered and fed by the kind Samaritans who inhabited the wilderness, where snow and ice-clothed field and dell, and where Winter seemed too firmly established ever again to yield to Spring's soft influences.
The day was dark and dreary upon our arrival at Pittsburg. Smoke hung like a pall over town and country, and but for the sociability and hospitality that reigns within doors, Pittsburg would be the gloomiest of places. ”

“ After going through another dreamy place—a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber full of water—we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at Pittsburg.
Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons, factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. ”

“ Pittsburg, which has within reach both coal and iron, that is to say, the daily bread of industry, which stands at the head of the Ohio, at the starting point of steam-navigation, at the confluence of the Monongahela and the Alleghany, coming the one from the south and the other from the north; Pittsburg, which is near the great chain of lakes, appears as the pivot of a vast system of roads, railroads, and canals, several of which are already completed. ”

“ More fanciful still are monkeys swinging from ribbons, centaurs prancing, putti riding goats which are led by older boys, fauns waving banners, owls, garlands and serpents, all set in a rich plastered and painted framework, finished with gold rosettes.
Service in the private palace of the cardinal led on to employment by Pope Innocent, to whom, no doubt, Giuliano recommended Pintoricchio for this class of [56] work, for in 1486 he was at work in the Belvedere. ”

“ The hand with outstretched finger we find no less than thirteen times. The same heads are used. The head of the greybeard on the left, in fresco I., is repeated nine times; the man with pointed beard, in front on the left of fresco II., comes in as the emperor in fresco III., and in the foreground, as a spectator, in the sixth tableau. We admire again the way in which Pintoricchio is able to divide his assistants, to use their various hands so that monotony is avoided, while imposing his own style sufficiently to produce a strikingly homogeneous impression. ”

“ Pittsburg is situated on the point where the rivers Alleghany and Monongahela mingle their waters, forming the majestic river Ohio, which, flowing towards the western and southern states, and even to the Atlantic, afford an easy outlet for the products of its industry. ”

“ In the manner in which the people regarded the unpleasant appendage connected with Pittsburg to which I have just adverted, I saw another evidence of the benevolence and wisdom of the Creator in constituting us with capabilities of adapting ourselves to whatever is around us. The smoky atmosphere, so far from being an annoyance to the citizens of Pittsburg, is constantly spoken of by them as its beauty and glory, and seems associated in their minds with all the delights and interest of home. ”

“ What Forbes's stockade at Fort Pitt has grown to be you know better than I. The huge triumphs of Pittsburg in material production—iron, steel, coke, glass, and all the rest of it—can only be told in colossal figures that are almost as hard to realize in our minds as the figures of astronomical distance or geologic time. ”

“ Oh, it is being civilized like all new places. We have had to work and struggle to plant towns and bring them into shape. Pittsburg has a most admirable position for traffic and abounds in iron ore as well as other minerals. ”

“ PITATUS.—This remarkable object, 58 miles in diameter, with Hesiodus, its companion on the E., situated at the extreme S. end of the Mare Nubium, afford good examples of a class of formations which exhibit undoubted signs of partial destruction, from some unknown cause, on that side of them which faces the Mare. On every side but the N., Pitatus is a walled plain of an especially massive type, the border on the S.E. furnishing one of the finest examples of terraces to be found on the visible surface. ”

“ He insisted that the French had been really driven out. They certainly had been checked in their advance to the Mississippi.
Pittsburg was a conglomerate in these early days. Welsh, Irish, and English had contributed to its then small population of the few hundreds whose history and beginning were like so many other emigrants. The houses were ranged largely about the Fort for protection from the Indians. There were small crooked lanes, a few dignified by-streets, Penn Street, 12 Duquesne way, Water and Ferry streets. ”

“ Pittsburg is at present essentially pacific; if cannon and balls are seen here, it is because a trading people make it a rule to supply the market with whatever is wanted. The cannon are new, fresh from the mould, and equally at the disposition of the Sultan Mahmoud, or the Emperor of Morocco, or the government of the States, whichever will pay for them. Pittsburg is a manufacturing town, which will one day become the Birmingham of America ”

“ More curious are the two species of Pitta peculiar to Banca; one, Pitta megarhynchus, is allied to the P. brachyurus, which inhabits the whole sub-region and extends to Siam and China, but differs from it in its very large bill and differently coloured head; the other, P. bangkanus, is allied to P. cucullatus, which extends from Nepal to Malacca, and to P. sordidus, which inhabits both Borneo and Sumatra as well as the Philippines. ”

“ PITTSBURG'S BEST MAN. Before the war there were a great many coal boatmen traveling on the river. I was coming up at that time with Captain Forsyth, on the steamer Cambria. Some of the coal boat crew traveled in the cabin, and others on deck. I got into a game with one of their bullies. They said he was the best man in Pittsburg. In the play I bested him out of a few hundred dollars, and he did not like it a bit. He went down on deck and told his party there was a BOY up stairs who had won all his money. ”

“ The monster iron works of Pittsburg consume large quantities of this coal, and it is the abundance and convenience of the latter material which have made the former possible. No other city begins to compare with Pittsburg in the number and variety of her factories. Down by the banks of the swift-flowing Allegheny most of the great foundries are to be discovered. The Fort Pitt Works are on a gigantic scale. ”

“ For Pittsburg had not reached any high point of refinement, and was such a conglomerate that they could hardly be expected to agree on all points.
The little girl lost interest presently in watching for her father, and half believed he was not coming. She was very fond of grandad, and Norry, and the wonderful stories she heard about fairies and "little folk," who came to your house at night, and did wonderful things—sometimes spun the whole night long, and at others did bits of mischief. ”

“ The heads certainly differ widely from Pintoricchio’s type, but if we apply Morelli’s test, the very peculiar left hand is reproduced line for line, in the Penelope of the Petrucci fresco. Notwithstanding, it is difficult to believe this to be a genuine work of the master. The little panel in the Pitti (the “Adoration of the Magi”) is much too feeble to be anything but an imitation, and the Virgin and Child are entirely unlike his type. The others of his works which are not questioned are a “Madonna and Cherubs” at Buda-Pesth; “St. Michael,” Leipzig; a “Madonna and a Crucifix” at Milan ”

“ Age has just the least in the world dimmed the lustre we once knew, but an unmistakable breath of the morning still encircles him, and the odour of primaeval woods. Pitchpine is not more pagan than he continues to be, and acorns as little confess the gardener's skill. ”

“ The quiet watcher may, however, hear the birds pattering over the beds of leaves, and see them hunting for molluscs and insects, or digging for worms and ants, but the slightest movement causes them to depart with long rapid hops, exchanged under pressure for a low, direct noiseless flight of short duration. Pittas are habitually, though not invariably, solitary, and are especially shy when breeding. ”

“ Almost as soon as I reached the church on Sunday evening, the doors and windows being open for the admission of air, I perceived the church was filled with a cloud of smoke. Surely Pittsburg is a smoky city. I ask the pardon of its inhabitants for this doleful description. The town certainly [Pg 44] bears marks of great thrift and prosperity, and its inhabitants do not lack in sterling excellencies of character. I should be very ungrateful if I did not here record the acknowledgement of the many acts of kindness and hospitality that were extended to me during my temporary stay. ”