Clasp

“ Truly, the digging of clams has its delights, and not all the rich are fitted to partake thereof. For how many of them see what lies before their eyes? How many of them see the colors the old sun spreads on the still water and the shining mud? A flat is a flat to them, a thing to be shunned; a thing that will spoil their white flannels and get their dresses all muddy. Not all of them are Old Goodwins. And the works of the Great Painter are not for such as these. But the colors were gone now, and the light, too, and I heard Eve sighing. ”

“ Klaff, masculine, ‘crash, yelp, bark,’ from Middle High German klaf (genitive klaffes) and klapf, masculine, ‘report, crack,’ Old High German klaph, masculine, anaklaph, ‘shock’; Middle High German klaffen, klapfen, ‘to ring, resound,’ ûf klaffen, ‘to break asunder, open, gape,’ Old High German chlaphôn; Gothic *klappôn is wanting; Anglo-Saxon clappian, English to clap. ‘Resounding’ is the primary meaning of the stem klapp, while ‘cracking, bursting, gaping’ is the derivative sense; compare Klapp and klopfen. ”

“ In each case the scene is a masquerade. In each case the figure is cloaked. In each, there is a quarrel—that is to say, angry words pass between the parties. In each the beholder is enraged. In each the cloak and sword fall upon the floor. ”

“ If these clang-waves were to come along fast enough to blend, and at regular intervals, they would produce a tone of their own. The clanging of the clapper would not be a noise, but a deep tone, perhaps making a chord with the ring-tone. ”

“ For, if the only slitting of one ear in a stag, has been found sufficient to propagate the defect through a whole forest; why should we wonder at the greatest consequences, from so many loppings and mutilations, to which the ears of our fathers, and our own, have been of late so much exposed? It is true indeed, that while this island of ours was under the dominion of grace, many endeavours were made to improve the growth of ears, once more among us. ”

“ A mask made to resemble a wasp's head and mouth, a waist contracted into the narrowest possible point, and a sheath, from which a sting could be emitted, sheathed, erected, or lowered at will, apprize the spectators what their dramatic character is to be. ”

“ One ought to feel what one was dancing. The features of the head were masked by the flowing hair and beard, just as the wax head’s had been—but there was something about it that made the dance real—real. Suppose it really were the head of someone she loved—Edmund. ”

“ The words buzz, crackle, crash, blow, rattle, roar, hiss, whistle, and many others of a like nature and construction, were evidently formed to imitate the sounds themselves. Sometimes the word expressing an object is formed to imitate the sound produced by that object, as waye, cuckoo, whippoorwill, whisper, hum. I have been thus particular in calling the attention of the reader to these beautiful characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon because it is the language of the Cat in so far as word-signs are used in it for want of action to express the ideas or as conjunctives more particularly. ”

“ And all these signs are as it were a kind of visible words. The signs that address themselves to the ear are, as I have said, more numerous, and for the most part consist of words. For though the bugle and the flute and the lyre frequently give not only a sweet but a significant sound, yet all these signs are very few in number compared with words. For among men words have obtained far and away the chief place as a means of indicating the thoughts of the mind. ”

“ In the glen of Castlemaine there are eldritch tongues that call;
And the little leaves have words that will hold the heart in thrall.
In the glen of Castlemaine there ’s a glamour over all.
For the fays have cast their spell o’er the glen of Castlemaine;
There is brooding wonder there, but no dream of blight or bane;
Here, if you have loved and lost, you may find your love again!
[p 42]
SONG
Just the sun on a slope of heather,
The long blue wind and the open sea;
All the cares of the world in tether,
And nobody there but you and me! ”

“ There were men apparently of every hue and clime and tongue here assembled, drawn together by the accidents of life, by the instinct of adventure—all more or less strange individuals of the strangest band it has ever been my lot to witness: the band of the Scalp-Hunters! ”

“ Do you think we've nothing to do but to fix the staves into the trestles (hoops) , so that the cask may hold together? Marry, it's a fine thing and an admirable thing that our handiwork requires a previous knowledge of the way in which that noble blessing of Heaven, good wine, must be kept and managed, that it may acquire strength and flavour so as to go through all our veins and warm our blood like the true spirit of life! And then as for the construction of the casks--if we are to turn out a successful piece of work, must we not first draw out our plans with compass and rule? ”

“ The children fell into each other's arms, sobbing and laughing.
"Their scalps are ours," chanted the chief; "ill-rooted were their ill-fated hairs! They came off in the hands of the victors—without struggle, without resistance, they yielded their scalps to the conquering Rock-dwellers! Oh, how little a thing is a scalp so lightly won!" ”

“ If one give thee a blow upon thy right cheek, turn to him the other also; [11] and thou shalt be perfect. If one impress thee for one mile, go with him two. [12] If one take away thy cloak, give him also thy coat. ”

“ The scalps are stretched on little hoops, or frames, and carried on the end of slender poles. These are brandished about in the course of the dance, with cries, shouts, and furious gestures. The women, who commence as spectators, becoming excited with the scene and the music which their own discordant notes help to make more deafening, rush in, seize the scalps from the hands of the owners, and toss them frantically about, with the screams and yells of demons. I have seen as many as forty or fifty scalps figuring in one dance. ”

“ Scalops, skā′lops, n. a genus of American shrew-moles. [Gr. skalops, a mole—skallein, to dig.]
Scalp, skalp, n. the outer covering of the skull or brain-case, including the skin, the expanded tendon of the occipito-frontalis muscle, with intermediate cellular tissue and blood-vessels: the skin on which the hair grows: the skin of the top of the head, together with the hair, torn off as a token of victory by the North American Indians: the skin of the head of a noxious wild animal: (her.) ”

“ They're so hairy and attractive, these scientists of the 19th century. We feel the zeal of a Sitting Bull when we think of their scalps. We shall have to have an expression of our own upon this confusing subject. We have expressions: we don't call them explanations: we've discarded explanations with beliefs. Though everyone who scalps is, in the oneness of allness, himself likely to be scalped, there is such a discourtesy to an enemy as the wearing of wigs. ”

“ Inflection. If we listen to the speech of the people around us, we can easily detect an upward slide of the voice on some words, a downward slide on others, and on others again a combination of the two. This slide of the voice on words—generally on the accented syllable of an emphatic [Pg 15] word—is called inflection, and the various inflections are known as rising (/) , falling (\) , rising circumflex (\/) , and falling circumflex (/\) . ”

“ As for the Bell Savage, which is the Sign of a Savage Man standing by a Bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the Conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old Romance translated out of the French, which gives an account of a very beautiful Woman who was found in a Wilderness, and it is called in the French La Belle Sauvage, and is everywhere translated by our Countrymen the Bell Savage. ”

“ If a man among you has a thorn in his foot, will it help him if he change his boots? I tell you, it is the thorn, the thorn itself, that you must get out, wrench out, cut out, if need be. We, the people, how often have we asked our rulers for bread and they have given us a stone? ”

“ On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning piteously, was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her something, baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose from her bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. ”

“ In looking at these very venerable ancestors it is the face that naturally attracts the greater attention. There is some expression in a skull, an expression of melancholy and surprise, with a suggestion of ferocity. Conspicuous, especially, is the look of wonder, the open mouth, the staring teeth, the solemn, hollow eye sockets. ”

“ By composition, I here mean when our words are so judiciously connected as to produce an agreeable sound (independent of numbers) which rather appears to be the effect of nature than of art; as in the following passage from Crassus, Nam ubi lubido dominatur, innocentiae leve praesidium est [Footnote: In the sentence which is here quoted from Crassus, every word which ends with a consonant is immediately succeeded by another which begins with a vowel; and, vice versa, if the preceding word ends with a vowel, the next begins with a consonant.] ”

“ In the figure of the dance they occasionally approach and recede from each other, and sometimes cross to the opposite side. It frequently happens, that the delicate corset by falling too low, exposes more of the body than is considered correct. ”

“ A human skull, with the brain scooped out, but the red scalp, and part of the hair, and the flesh of the face adhering to it, while the lower jaw had been torn away, was hung round this horrible-looking image's neck. ”

“ Directly they set foot in the spirit land, first of all one man came to the Skull and demanded his legs, then another his head, and the next his body, and so on, until in a few minutes the skull was left by itself in all its natural ugliness. ”

“ And when the women were all assembled, noble and ignoble, rich and poor, old and young, beautiful and ugly, and when all was ready, the king tried the slipper first on one and then on another of the guests, to see whom it should fit to a hair, and to be able thus to discover by the form of the slipper the maiden of whom he was in search ”

“ Nearer, one makes out the human shape of great drifts and hilly fields, many-colored and vaguely floral—the corpse of a section or of a company. Nearer still, I perceive at my feet the ugliness of skulls. Yes, I have seen them—wounds as big as men! In this new cess-pool, which fire dyes red by night and the multitude dyes red by day, crows are staggering, drunk. ”

“ It did, indeed, strike me as strange that a governess should know so little of clams, but probably she did not teach biology. Governesses to the Rich deal more in appearance and in manners. Still, I hold that in some respects the manners of a clam are worthy of imitation. He is quiet and unobtrusive. I waded out into the water and soused my basket well. Then I brought it to the governess sitting on the bank. ”

“ The seventh shaft does pierce the eye, Envy, which grudges others’ good; A shaft which, however we may feel, Is one which never does us good. When these in his hand the enemy takes, Many they are by’s arms destroyed; He never shoots but what he strikes, And never strikes but what he kills. Son of God, I’ll place a pater, And the apostles’ creed as well, Between me and these wounding arms, With five psalms, or six or seven. Seven. [157] ”

“ When one word in a sentence is distinguished by a stress, as more important than the rest, we may say that it is emphatical, or that an emphasis is laid upon it. When one syllable in a word is distinguished by a stress, and more audible than the rest, we say that it is accented, or that an accent is put upon it. Accent, therefore, is to syllables what emphasis is to sentences ”

“ For it is in no common manner that our lips are honored, when they receive the Lord’s Body. It is for this reason chiefly that we here kiss. Let them give ear who speak filthy things, who utter railing, and let them shudder to think what that mouth is they dishonor; let those give ear who kiss obscenely. ”

“ Others, e.g. Skeat, refer it to Swed. skalla, Icel. skjalla, to make a loud noise or clatter, and take the original sense to have been a “ loud talker.” This would link the word with “ scold," to rail at, find fault with, which is formed from Dutch schold, past tense of scheldan, cf. Ger. schelten, in the same sense.
Of different origin is the verb “ scald," to burn or injure the skin or flesh by hot liquid or steam (see Burns and Scalds) ; also to cleanse an object, or to remove hair, bristles, feathers &c., from an animal, by exposure to moist heat, such as boiling water, steam, &c. ”

“ My mule (with your excellency’s permission) is but a mule, and has no knowledge of sorrow or of language; therefore, of what avail to speak to her?’
“‘You are much mistaken,’ answered the student, who now had tears in his eyes, ‘for it is well known that even the irrational animals have feelings, and they have been heard to speak. ”

“ For I can't help feeling that a younger man—myself, for example, twenty years ago—would have been into it before you could say scalpel, snatching his joy as one of your own parr will take a Wickham on a clear pool before the half-pounder beside him has even decided to inspect it. And if I have not done this, if I have learned the better way, the art of lingering, the value of the "bouquet," [Pg 10] well, there's a rather forlorn piece of scalp in the opposite looking-glass to tell me the reason why. ”

“ Another of this class is the noun ‘sack.’ In its ordinary acceptation it means a large bag, and is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘sacc’ and the Latin ‘saccus.’ Hence comes the verb. To ‘sack’ a city is to carry off the plunder in a ‘bag.’ But another meaning of this word is found in ‘sack,’ a sort of wine. ”

“ As the hag grew more distinct to his eye, in the increasing light, her sharp features—the subtle cast of her eye—the infirm crazy motion—bent shoulders, and witch-like staff which she carried, brought many unpleasant fancies to the mind of the observer ”