Emblem

“ One striking source of its pomp was the multitude of its banners. Every emblem that mythology could feign, every [352] animal, every memorial connected with the history of soldiership and Rome, glittered above the forest of spears. Gilded serpents, wolves, lions, gods, genii, stars, diadems, imperial busts, and the eagle paramount over all, were mingled with vanes of purple and embroidery. The most showy pageant of civil life was dull and colorless to the crowded splendor of the Roman line. ”

“ And so when an Emperor is married, or the funeral rites of a Sovereign Prince celebrated, or a new saint canonized, or perchance some proud cardinal or noble to be glorified, whatever Art can accomplish by symbol and song is devoted to the emblem-book pageantry,—and the graving tool and the printing press accomplish as enduring and wide-spread a splendour as even Titian’s Triumphs of Faith and Fame. ”

“ Secretary, Friends, and Fellow Citizens:—I know of nothing more difficult than to render an adequate tribute to the emblem of our nation. For those of us who have shared that nation's life and felt the beat of its pulse it must be considered a matter of impossibility to express the great things which that emblem embodies. I venture to say that a great many things are said about the flag which very few people stop to analyze. For me the flag does not express a mere body of vague sentiment. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A brilliant emblem here to own
Of souls upon the shining mountain,
Exulting round the Mercy throne,
Where, lovelier than the loveliest flowers,
And all like you in God's employ,
They shine their everlasting hours,
And shed around a glorious joy.
[88]
THE HEIFER DEPRIVED OF HER MATES.
For absent friends and interrupted loves
See yonder solitary heifer mourn,
As questing vainly round the close she roves,
Of all her spotted yoke-fellows forlorn. ”

“ An emblem is something that represents an object; the same as a balance is an emblem of justice, and a crown an emblem of royalty, and a scepter is an emblem of power; so we find in the 17th chapter of Exodus and 6th verse, that water is an emblem of the Holy Spirit. You find in the Smitten Rock, in the wilderness, the work of the Trinity illustrated. ”

“ Thank God each day that your lot has fallen beneath the Stars and Stripes. It is a sacred flag. There is only one holier emblem known to man.
You have American conditions about you every day, and so their value and advantage become commonplace and unnoted. ”

“ In general, it may be observed that white is the emblem of innocence, purity, prosperity—as the opposite is of sickness, sin, calamity. If the significance of the emblem turned alone on the colour, we should look to something cheerful, prosperous, happy as the thing that was symbolized. ”

“ The emblem of fire suggests a double operation, and the very felicity of it as an emblem is that it has these two sides, and with equal naturalness may stand for a power which quickens, and for one which destroys. ”

“ We can talk lightly of a flag as being only a distinguishing mark or emblem, but its true emblematic character is not realized until some occasion arises to impress upon us what is meant by the flag of our country. ”

“ The arms that toil and tongues that sing
Might Homer's lyre employ.
My emblem briefly would express
The wealth of deed and speech
Man brings to man, wherewith to bless
All hearts within their reach ”

“ Emblems, figures, symbols, &c., constitute a vast ocean of associations which all enter on, all understand, all sympathise with more or less. They enrich our language, enter into our commonest thoughts and conversation, as well as our compositions in poetry and prose.
Often the clearest ideas we have on abstruse points are derived from them, e.g. the shamrock or trefoil is an emblem of the Blessed Trinity. Nothing perhaps helps us to comprehend the resurrection of the body, and in a glorified state through preserving its identity, as the apostle's illustration and emblem of the growth of corn. ”

“ Blessed emblem! that any should so confound their own names and denunciatory practices with the revealed truth, as to imagine that a standard so appropriate should ever be out of season and place, when it is proper for man to use aught, at all, that is addressed to his senses, in the way of symbols, rites, and ceremonies! ”

“ It is only in modern times that the peacock has become the emblem of worldly pride.
The Crown, as introduced in Christian Art, is either an emblem or an attribute. It has been the emblem from all antiquity of victory, and of recompense due to superior power or virtue. In this sense the word and the image are used in Scripture in many passages: for example, ‘Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of glory.’ And in this sense, as the recompense of those who had fought the good fight to the end, and conquered, the crown became the especial symbol of the glory of martyrdom. ”

“ Scarcely have two decades passed away since he ceased to dwell among men, yet he now stands before us, not as a mere individual, like those whom the world is wont to call great, but as a type, as an emblem—the recognised emblem and representative of the human mind in its present stage of culture and advancement. ”

“ Symbolism is a primitive but effective way of communicating ideas. The use of an emblem or flag to symbolize some system, idea, institution, or personality, is a shortcut from mind to mind. Causes and nations, political parties, lodges and ecclesiastical groups seek to knit the loyalty of their followings to a flag or banner, a color or design. ”

“ This is a double question and may be subdivided as follows: What has led the clan to choose an emblem? and why have these emblems been borrowed from the animal and vegetable worlds, and particularly from the former?
That an emblem is useful as a rallying-centre for any sort of a group it is superfluous to point out. By expressing the social unity in a material form, it makes this more obvious to all, and for that very reason the use of emblematic symbols must have spread quickly when once thought of. But more than that, this idea should spontaneously arise out of the conditions of common life ”

“ Though enseignes very frequently bore some religious representation, or the figure or emblem of some patron saint, they ended, like other articles primarily religious, {223} by becoming purely secular, and took the forms of devices of a fanciful or even humorous character.
Every one from the highest rank downwards had his personal devise or impresa, or more often a series of them. It was worn as an emblem—an ingenious expression of some conceit of the wearer, the outcome of his peculiar frame of mind. ”

“ They are only the pictures of things which are themselves the objects of sight, as the real sugar-loaf in the shop of the grocer, and the real mortar in that of the apothecary. However, an implement belonging to a particular rank or profession is commonly used as an emblem to point out the man exercising that rank or profession. Thus, a crown is considered as an emblem of a king ”

“ The Pelican wounding her own breast to feed her young ones was an ancient symbol of the Great Sacrifice. One or both of these last-named emblems are frequently met with in ancient crosses or crucifixes, the lamb at the foot, and the pelican at the top of the cross.
The Good Shepherd, carrying a sheep, is also an ancient emblem.
Swords.
The Sword is an emblem varying in signification according to the sharpness of its point. ”

“ Let the princes of the earth boast of their lineage; let the sons of a race emblazoned with the proudest heraldry, hang out the flag that displays their arms, and prove their worth and greatness, by deciphering the emblems of a piece of parchment, borrowed from the remotest antiquity. ”

“ In the literal use of the word emblem Shakespeare is very exact. Parolles, All’s Well, act ii. sc. 1, l. 40, charges the young lords of the French court, as
“Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin;” and adds, “Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it.”
The Coronation Scene in Henry VIII., act iv. sc. 1. l. 81–92, describes the solemnities, when Anne Bullen, “the goodliest woman that ever lay by man ”

“ The emblem of the vine and the branches, and the other emblem of the house and its inhabitants, and the other of the head and the members, all point to this one same thing which shallow and unspiritual men call 'mystical,' but which is the very heart of the Christian prerogative and the anchor of the Christian hope. Christ in us is our present righteousness and our hope of a future glory. ”

“ Again, while a serpent might properly be called a symbol, one in connection with a staff is an emblem. In this restricted sense, emblem is closely allied in meaning to allegory. But in an allegorical representation most of the elements of it are apt to be symbolic, and beauty of the whole is a consideration. The great Epidaurian representation of Æsculapius is an example. A simple image or statue is essentially a symbol. ”

“ Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word. ”

“ Of the changes through which a word may pass, “the word Emblem presents one of the most remarkable instances.” They cannot be better given than in the “Sketch of that branch of Literature called Books of Emblems,” read in 1848 before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, by the late Joseph Brooks Yates, Esq. He says of the word Emblem, pp. 8, 9,—“its present signification, ‘Type or allusive representation,’ is of comparatively modern use, while its original meaning is become obsolete. ”

“ Realizing that an emblem of natural beauty is as significant and essential as a State seal, motto, or flag, twenty-six States, more than one-half of the nation's commonwealths, have formally, by legislative action and gubernatorial approval, selected State flowers. ”

“ Claude Marginality, or Minōs, the famous commentator on the Emblems of Andreas Alciatus, in his Tract, Concerning Symbols, Coats of Arms, and Emblems,—eds. 1581, or 1608, or 1614,—maintains there is a clear distinction between emblems and symbols, which, as he affirms, “many persons rashly and ignorantly confound together.” [2] “We confess,” he adds, “that the force of the Emblem depends upon the Symbol: but they differ, I say, as Man and Animal ”

“ An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. ”

“ From being a seemingly harmless group whose emblem was originally a brass paper clip fastened in the coat lapel it has developed by rapid strides. Manufacturers of emblems are coining money by the sale of hands, palm outstretched. ”

“ However fanciful in themselves, they are realities,—true exponents of the Emblem art of their day; so that, within the compass of our volume, containing above two hundred examples of emblematic devices and designs, is exhibited a very full representation of the various styles of the original works, and which, in the absence of the works themselves, may serve to show their chief characteristics. ”

“ In the rushes growing up densely from a common root we have an emblem of brothers all sprung from the same ancestor; and in the plants developing. so finely, when preserved from injury, an emblem of the happy fellowships of consanguinity, when nothing is allowed to interfere with mutual confidence and good, feeling. ”

“ KNOTTED together as are Emblems and the very language of Heraldry, we must expect to find Emblem writers devoting some at least of their inventions to heraldic purposes. This has been done to a very considerable extent by the Italians, especially by Paolo Giovio, Domenichi, Ruscelli, and Symeoni ”

“ We may here remark, since embossed ornaments and sculptured figures on any plain surface are essentially Emblems, the sculptor, the engraver, the statuary and the architect, indeed all workers in wood, metal, or stone, who embellish with device or symbol the simplicity of nature’s materials, are especially entitled to take rank in the fraternity of the Emblematists. ”

“ SIGNS, SYMBOLS, AND EMBLEMS.
The terms sign, symbol, and emblem are often used interchangeably and therefore incorrectly. Many persons ascribe an occult and mystic signification to symbols, probably from their general religious and esoteric employment. All characters in Indian picture-writing have [608] been loosely styled symbols, and, as there is no logical distinction between the characters impressed with enduring form and when merely outlined in the ambient air, all Indian gestures, motions, and attitudes, intended to be significant, might with equal appropriateness be called symbolic. ”

“ See the power of national emblems. Some stars, lilies, leopards, a crescent, a lion, an eagle, or other figure, which came into credit God knows how, on an old rag of bunting, blowing in the wind, on a fort, at the ends of the earth, shall make the blood tingle under the rudest, or the most conventional exterior. The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics! ”

“ Mary, the emblem of the Holy Trinity, or whatever the emblem may be of the saint in question. (The alternative for a church is the banner of St. George, the patron saint of the realm.) The flags upon public buildings should bear the arms of the corporate bodies to whom those buildings belong. The flag to be flown by a private person, as the law now stands, should bear that person's private arms, if he has any, and if he has not he should be content to forego the pleasures arising from the use of bunting. A private flag should be double its height in length. ”