Esparto

“ When a Battle is Lost, This or That, we say, might have Prevented it. When a Tumult is Emprov‘d into a Rebellion, and a Government Oyer-turn'd by't, 'tis just to as much purpose to say, This or That might have Sav'd All; As for our Dr. here to say, when his Patient was Dead, that it was for want of going such or such a way to Work. We have abundance of These Wise-Men in the World that are still looking backward without seeing One Inch of the way before them. ”

“ The king wanted to be bled, and the surgeon was sent for. He came, and began to bind up the king's arm, while they placed a bason to receive the blood. The surgeon took the fatal lancet out of his turban, and was just going to open the vein, when, accidentally casting his eye on the bason, he read these words that were engraved upon it. Never begin anything till you have first reflected what will be the end of it. He instantly fell into a deep study, and said within himself, 'If I bleed the king with this lancet, he is a dead man. ”

“ I force my way through the assembled crowd, and find all with bowed heads gazing at a man who lies upon the ground, his head upon the knees of the old sergeant. The man is pale as death, and his lips are covered with bloody froth, and all around him the earth is drenched with fresh blood--his blood--the heart's blood of that noblest of living men. ”

“ Picture to yourself an old man, tall rather than short, with a wooden leg, his left arm shortened to within a few inches of the elbow, minus an eye, and his face seamed with wounds in every direction—slashed by the various arms of the enemy ”

“ But for the oarsman there is only the incessant pull, pull, pull, with the bees in his brain and the growing hole in his stomach, the aching legs and leaden arms, and before him, growing dimmer and dimmer, the bare back that will never stop rising and falling, and that he must follow, it seems, to death. ”

“ Heavy convulsions shook the body of the officer, frightening and horrifying the young soldier. Yet it pleased him, too, to repress them. It pleased him to keep his hands pressing back the chin, to feel the chest of the other man yield in expiration to the weight of his strong, young knees, to feel the hard twitchings of the prostrate body jerking his own whole frame, which was pressed down on it. ”

“ There exists in the breasts of most of those who have served, or are serving, in the Army, an Esprit de Corps—an attachment to everything belonging to their Regiment; to such persons a narrative of the services of their own Corps cannot fail to prove interesting. Authentic accounts of the actions of the great, the valiant, the loyal, have always been of paramount interest with a brave and civilized people. ”

“ The victim thinks the red scarf the cause of all his troubles. It is expected that the accomplished espada will remain pretty firm on his feet and not caper about a great deal. He must move chiefly with his arms and body. ”

“ In this passage Servetus distinguishes three sorts of spirits in the human body, and says that blood, “which he calls a vital spirit, is dispersed through the body by the anastomosis, or mutual insertion of two vessels, at their extremities, into one another.” Here it deserves observation, that Servetus is the first who employed that term to express the communication between the veins and arteries. He makes “the expanded air in the lungs contribute to the formation of blood, which comes to them from the right ventricle of the heart, by the canal of the pulmonary artery.” ”

“ If the arm of a man, the branch of a tree, or the leg of a chair were cut off, would in each case the astral counterpart also be removed, and can we, by breaking an astral counterpart, produce a fracture in a physical object? ”

“ When I had marched my regiment to their cells that night, and retired to my room, I reflected that every human existence has its moments of fate, when the apples of the Hesperides hang ready upon the bough, but, alas! how few are wise enough to pluck them. ”

“ John told me, that when an officer thinks he recognizes one of these retiring heroes, and would know if he has really been in the service, that he may restore him, if possible, to a grateful country, he comes suddenly upon him, and says, sharply, “Strap!” If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the reprimand for its ill adjustment. The old word of command flashes through his muscles, and his hand goes up in an instant to the place where the strap used to be. ”

“ Before the officer can return, a general scramble is made in the direction where we are standing; and we wonder what can be the intentions of such an ill-looking-herd of vagrants as rush towards us. They fall about our feet, and touch our clothes to gain attention. ”

“ THE SPEAR OF THE GREAT SPURNING Upreared in the night, pallid-gray ’gainst the moon, towers she they call Astoreth, goddess of flesh and of worms, older than all years, younger than Love.
Alone I stand in that desert in that dead of the night with the Spear of the Great Spurning, tipped with the poison of an Ageless Thought, leveled straight at her dugs. ”

“ He went away, and wandered on until he came to a field [77] where a man was ploughing; when he turned up a clod he threw it into his mouth and swallowed it. Asphurtzela gazed and gazed, and at last said: ‘Man, why dost thou swallow these clods?’ ‘There is no cause for surprise in that; Asphurtzela has killed the hundred-headed devi, what is there remarkable in my swallowing clods?’ said the clod-swallower. ‘I am Asphurtzela, so let us be as brothers,’ said Asphurtzela. ”

“ And all this took place before the battle on the banks of the Drave, which the earlier part of my speech described to you. For after that they began to feel perfect confidence, though before that it looked as though the usurper's cause was getting the upper hand, when he gained some slight advantage in the affair of the Emperor's scouts, [135] which indeed made the usurper beside himself with joy and greatly agitated those who were incapable of grasping or estimating generalship. ”

“ The practitioner was then to assail the pel, armed with sword and shield in the same manner as he would an adversary, aiming his blows as if at the head, the face, the arms, the legs, the thighs, and the sides; taking care at all times to keep himself so completely covered with his shield, as not to give any advantage supposing he had a real enemy to cope with: so far my author; and prefixed to the treatise is a neat little painting representing the pel, with a young soldier performing his exercise, which is here copied.
27. The Pel Quintain—XIV. Century. ”

“ And foot to foot they went, and many a pass and downstroke did Osbert try, but in vain; ever the wild man with his small sword was before him, and ever wearier Osbert grew, whiles the stranger waxed stronger, beating down his guard. And all the youths and Torfrida marvelled at such a wondrous swordsmith. At length he sent the brand of Osbert from his hand with a quick turn, and utterly abashed before the lady’s eyes, the thane stood defenceless. ”

“ Army surgeons recognize three types of wounded. One type so nervous, that it drops the moment it is struck, whether the wound is disabling or not. Another so nerveless, that it fights on, unconscious that it has been hit. ”

“ The count and his servant, imprisoned just as we are in adjoining cells, with a hole in the partition wall through which they can speak to one another, and the servant has discovered a knotted rope, a big sou and a staple just as I have discovered them. Well, monsieur, the count is to be beheaded, and his execution is fixed for the next day, but the faithful servant hands him through the hole in the wall the means for escape, the rope, the big sou containing a saw, and the staple. ”

“ In the front rank will stand organs of an official character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and therefore their influence will comparatively insignificant. In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part it will be to attract the tepid and indifferent. In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. ”

“ I would remark," fiercely added the general, "that neither we nor our principal are to be cajoled or intimidated."
"It shall be as you say, general. Nothing remains then, I think, for us but to name a time and place. The weapons, the most unusual weapons, we are reluctantly compelled to accept under protest. Have you any suggestion to offer, general?"
"None whatever, sir. One party shall provide a surgeon, the other a pair of ordinary cavalry sabres. You as a resident in this infernal hole can doubtless suggest a suitable spot for the meeting. ”

“ Each corps, as it marches on to the ground, headed by the officer appointed to lead the attack—who wears a sword of a different shape, from the others—halts about two hundred yards from the nearest pile, and shoulders arms. ”

“ You may call the guard now, Captain, and I will turn you over—not to a firing squad, but to the tender mercies of our old rascal host who is a 'trimmer' of the devil's own school. If he tries to screw a penny's pay out of you, as he is like to, put him in arrest. ”

“ We talk of the world, but we mean a few men and women. If you speak of the age, you mean your own platoon of people, as Milton and Dante painted in colossal their platoons, and called them Heaven and Hell. ”

“ Then he determined to lead the assault in person, and though suffering from a severe wound in his left hand, he tied his shield to his left arm, and, brandishing his sword, called upon his men to follow. ”

“ The right hand grasps a long spear. Position is, facing the audience, the body erect, and eyes directed straight forward. At the corner of the platform, near the soldier, kneels the mother of the child, in position so that a side view is had of the face; the hands are clasped and raised in front of her breast, head thrown back, and eyes directed to the king, countenance expressing hope. ”

“ Servetus dared to deny the passage of the blood through the septum of the heart, and contended that that which comes into the right side was distributed to the lung and returned to the left ventricle. He published his views, however, in a religious treatise on Errors concerning The Trinity, a most unfortunate place in which to inject such an [Pg 333] important fact, since it gave his enemies a still greater opportunity to vent and ventilate their spleen. ”

“ If within the left ear of a foetus there are three ears with the inner sides well formed, thy ally will become hostile.
If behind each of the two ears there are three ears visible on the outside, confusion in the land, the counsel of the land will be discarded, one land after the other will revolt. ”

“ We progress. The days when the whole art of war consisted of "On the left, form platoons... On the left, blanket," are over. Skirmishing, signalling, musketry, Swedish drill—a variety of entertainment is now open to us; there is even a class for buglers. To give you an idea of the Corps at work, I offer you a picture of James and myself semaphoring to each other. ”

“ But Strok, the armorer, was feared most because of his brain, and his knack of using his mind to the undoing of others. And he taught me all that he knew; taught me all that he had learned in a lifetime of fighting for the emperor, of mending the complicated machines in the armory, of contact with the chemists who wrought the secret alloy, and the chiefs who led the army. ”

“ The subdivisions of the army having been previously fixed, and the various signals agreed upon, the separating and joining, the dispersing and collecting which will take place in the course of a battle, may give the appearance of disorder when no real disorder is possible. ”

“ So satisfied were the Spartans of this, that, in order to make their officers endeavour to achieve every thing by stratagem, they ordered that every general who obtained an advantage by stratagem, was to be permitted to sacrifice an ox, but those who succeeded by open force, a cock only. ”

“ You would expect that any man who had been snatched back to life in such a fashion would start and tremble at the reprieve, or would break down altogether, but this boy turned his head steadily, and followed with his eyes the direction of the officer's sword, then nodded his head gravely, and with his shoulders squared, took up a new position, straightened his back again, and once more held himself erect. ”

“ Who that has ever seen a man stripped before the gaze of a regiment, his limbs bound to the halberts, and the knotted scourge lacerating his flesh, while the surgeon stood by to measure by the pulse the amount of human agony which the poor wretch could suffer, would ever wish to see it again? ”

“ It was at the Sight of one of these Bodies, very tall and large, lying with his Head on a great Stone, his Feet supported with a little Wall of Stone, the Body resting on a Bed of Wood (as before was mention'd.) The Fellow being now a little out of his Fright entred in, and cut off a great Piece of the Skin that lay on the Breast of this Body, which, the Doctor says, was more flexible and pliant than ever he felt any Kids-leather Glove, yet so far from being rotten, that the Man used it for his Flail many Years after. ”

“ Having made my alignment with the neighboring divisions on the right and left, I was halting on horseback with my staff, between my skirmishers and my line of battle, in momentary expectation of further orders, when I heard a shell, as I judged, coming straight towards me. “This is the one,” I said to myself. ”

“ Yet, for all that, he runs violently upon his enemy, and coming near him, diveth down on a sudden, gets under his belly, and setting up his fins, pricks him in the soft part of his belly, which is the only place he can be wounded in. ”