Goblet

“ THE GOBLET OF LIFE Filled is Life's goblet to the brim; And though my eyes with tears are dim, I see its sparkling bubbles swim, And chant a melancholy hymn With solemn voice and slow. No purple flowers,—no garlands green, Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves of mistletoe. This goblet, wrought with curious art, Is filled with waters, that upstart, When the deep fountains of the heart, By strong convulsions rent apart, Are running all to waste. ”

“ Yvon took the goblet, which the seneschal presented to him on a salver of enamel and gold, with a careless hand, bowed to the stranger, drank the wine, and, setting the cup on the table before him, turned to the fair-haired lady who occupied all his thoughts. ”

“ Before the words had left his lips the stick flew through the air, killed the man, and brought back the goblet. Thus he had both the stick and the goblet.
Farther on he saw a man coming who carried an iron hammer.
"What is your hammer good for?" inquired he as they met.
"My hammer is so good," replied the traveller, "that when I strike it nine times on the ground immediately there rises up an iron tower nine storeys high."
"Yours is a good hammer," replied the turbulent man, "but look at my goblet; whatever you desire of meat or drink this same goblet provides for the wishing. ”

“ Deserted, save for her chum, Helen Cameron, cowering in her bed. The masked and shrouded figures were gone, and Ruth found herself standing, panting and gasping, in the middle of the room, with the half-filled goblet in her hand, her heart beating as though it would burst. ”

“ He held the glass up to the light and slowly revolved its gracefully thin stem between his thumb and forefinger.
“Don’t you like Campania?”
“Very much,” he answered. “But it’s the glass that interests me. This goblet comes from my father’s plant near Tyre.”
“Oh, really?” She smiled. “I’m glad. I knew they were made in Phoenicia, but I didn’t know they came from Senator Piso’s glassworks. Herodias gave me several pieces from a set Antipas brought her. They are lovely.” She lifted her own goblet and admired it in the moonlight. “Such beautiful craftsmanship. ”

“ Alas! this evening my style flows not at all. Flow, then, into this smoke-colored goblet, thou blood of the Rhine! out of thy prison-house,--out of thy long-necked, tapering flask, in shape not unlike a church-spire among thy native hills; and, from the crystal belfry, loud ring the merry tinkling bells, while I drink a health to my hero, in whose heart is sadness, and in whose ears the bells of Andernach are ringing noon. ”

“ There were no passers-by, and the street lanterns had not been lighted on account of there being a moon.
He redoubled his pace.
In a few strides he had reached the Goblet potteries, on the front of which the moonlight rendered distinctly legible the ancient inscription:--
De Goblet fils c'est ici la fabrique; [14] Venez choisir des cruches et des broos, Des pots a fleurs, des tuyaux, de la brique. A tout venant le Coeur vend des Carreaux. [14] This is the factory of Goblet Junior: Come choose your jugs and crocks, Flower-pots, pipes, bricks. The Heart sells Diamonds to every comer. ”

“ On the middle of the altar OEnothea placed an old table, upon which she heaped live coals, then with melted pitch she repaired a goblet which had become cracked through age. Next she replaced, in the smoke-stained wall, a peg which had come out when she took down the wooden goblet. Then, having donned a mantle, in the shape of a piece of square-cut cloth, she set a huge kettle upon the hearth and at the same time speared with a fork a cloth hanging upon the meathooks, and lifted it down. ”

“ Within this phial dwells the water of forgetfulness; a goblin brought it me from the depths of the underworld. To-night you must pour it forth into a golden goblet, and that goblet you must stand by the youth’s place at the dinner of the court. As soon as he drinks of it, he will forget the weaver’s maid forever.”
And now it was evening, and the King and his guests were at dinner in the castle banquet-hall. There were candles everywhere, white tables and golden plates, and much coming and going of servants clad in green. ”

“ Touch the goblet no more! It will make thy heart sore To its very core! ”

“ These horns were not so universal in France, some forms of goblet being in use even during the 8th and 9th centuries, one such being seen on the right-hand end of the main table, where sit the Bishop and those of higher rank. By the 14th century horns seem to have gone completely out of use.
On this right-hand table is a goodly array of knives, goblets and plates of various sizes; some pieces of the Norman pottery shown here are in the British Museum. ”

“ GOBLET, RENÉ (1828–1905) , French politician, was born at Aire-sur-la-Lys, in the Pas de Calais, on the 26th of November 1828, and was educated for the law. Under the Second Empire, he helped to found a Liberal journal, Le Progrès de la Somme, and in July 1871 was sent by the department of the Somme to the National Assembly, where he took his place on the extreme left. He failed to secure election in 1876, but next year was returned for Amiens. He held a minor government office in 1879, and in 1882 became minister of the interior in the Freycinet cabinet. ”

“ Seconds are not marked upon the Palace Clock, when, with her eyes flashing fire, Goblin is up in the middle of the chamber, describing, with her sunburnt arms, a wheel of heavy blows. Thus it ran round! cries Goblin. Mash, mash, mash! An endless routine of heavy hammers. Mash, mash, mash! upon the sufferer’s limbs. See the stone trough! says Goblin. For the water torture! Gurgle, swill, bloat, burst, for the Redeemer’s honour! Suck the bloody rag, deep down into your unbelieving body, Heretic, at every breath you draw. ”

“ New light and strength they give!
And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe,
With which its brim may overflow,
He has not learned to live. ”

“ For a second he saw stars, and the cold silver felt very different from his soft, warm peaked cap which he had tossed aside.
The little fairies, seeing the Goblin hopping about in the moonlight, called to the Queen: "Oh, look, dear Queen. Drive away the Goblin; he acts quite mad and may mean mischief."
The Queen, knowing that Goblins, when they were quite sane, were not friendly to her fairies, held up her wand and cast a ray of light straight into the Goblin's eye. "Leave our dell," she said, "or something will happen to you that you will not like." ”

“ She’s carried away by the goblin!”
In a few words, she told of the dreadful scene in the garden; and all concluded that the spectre must have carried off his bride. Two of the servants said they had heard the clatter of horse’s hoofs down the mountain-side about midnight, and had no doubt it was the black charger of the spectre.
The poor baron was inconsolable. What sorrow to have his only child, his daughter, carried off by a goblin! How terrible to have, perhaps, goblin grandchildren! As usual, he was completely bewildered, and all the castle was in an uproar. ”

“ I daresay it seems incomprehensible to you that any woman should not be thankful to accept at your hands the crumbs that may fall from another’s table, but with regard to Miss Brandt, I assure you it is true! And even were it otherwise, I am certain Madame Gobelli would not admit you to her house. You know the sort of person she is! She can be very violent if she chooses, and the names she called you yesterday, were not pretty ones. ”

“ By-and-by in she came; he pretended to be asleep, and looked out of the tail of his eye. She was still munching and crunching, and as she munched she muttered:
“Man’s meat, man’s meat,
That’s what Goblins like to eat!”
She said it over and over again, then lay down; and soon she was snoring loudly.
The captain was horribly frightened to find he had married a Goblin. What was he to do? They could not fight with Goblins, and they were in the Goblins’ power. If they had a ship they might have sailed away, because Goblins hate the water worse than a cat; but their ship was gone. ”

“ The terror of the inhabitants of Alfheim, or Fairy land, for running water, has been too often asserted to require much comment. Unlicensed spirits, that wander on the face of the earth, with intentions injurious to mankind, are always represented as tortured with hydrophobia. The author cannot hope that he has painted the Goblin’s terror in all the glowing colours of a Burns, [19] or with the finer tints of a Scott; yet he flatters himself some beauty may be found, by the admirers of pleonastic redundancy, in the passage expressive of the horror of the horse and rider ”

“ But peering thro’ the dimness, naught discerning,
Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.
⁠Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
“Come buy, come buy”;——
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the moon waxed bright
Her hair grew thin and grey ”

“ Tell me." And the fairy said: "The curse is over. Yet because I have been bound so long in the fetters of your love, I have lost my magic arts. I cannot fly." Then the king thought: "The fairy is really mine," and he was happy and made a great feast.
When the counsellor Farsight saw this, he went home, and lay down on his bed, and his heart broke, and he died. Then the king governed the kingdom himself, and lived for [107] a long time in heavenly happiness with Moonlight.
When he had told this story, the goblin said: "O King, when the king was so happy, why should the counsellor's heart break? ”

“ Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?"
⁠Laura turned cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
"Come buy our fruits, come buy."
Must she then buy no more dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life drooped from the root:
She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;
But peering thro' the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way ”

“ Then the king broke silence and said: "She should be given to the brave man, who risked his life and killed the giant and saved the girl. The wise man and the clever man were only helpers whom Fate gave him. A star-gazer and a chariot-maker work for other people, do they not?"
When the goblin heard this answer, he suddenly escaped from the king's shoulder and went back. And the king determined to get him, and went again to the sissoo tree. ”

“ That evening the hotel clerk handed Mr. Fabian a legal looking envelope, which, upon being opened, proved to contain the passes necessary for visitors to enter and see the famous tapestries woven by the Gobelin Society.
“Ah! Now you girls will see something worth while,” remarked Mr. Fabian, holding the slips of paper above his head. “I have here the ‘open 147 sesame’ to the National Manufactory of the Gobelins which still is housed in the grounds of Louis the XVIth. There we may feast our eyes on some of the examples of weaving that has made this Society so famous.” ”

“ At this instant something sprang upon his back; but, before he could cry out in his terror, a head was suddenly thrust over his shoulder, and he found the Goblin, who was now of a bright purple color, staring him in the face and laughing with all his might. ”

“ The Goblin, however, was not going to let them off so easily; he wanted his dinner too. After waiting a long time, with never a sneeze from one or the other, he raised a cloud of fine dust; that was rather mean of him, but still he was very hungry, and did not stick at trifles. Sure enough, the father nearly sneezed his head off.
The Goblin chuckled, and made ready to pounce from his perch and devour the pair of them. But the son happened to see him, and, being a sharp lad, he guessed the truth. “God bless you, father!” says he; “may you live a hundred years!” ”

“ Believe me, devote all your attention to the human foot; learn to draw that correctly,—and then perhaps you may be successful as a bootmaker." Therewith he passed on to the neighbour. Shortly afterwards the real Monsieur Gleyre came in, for the whole thing was a plant, and Gobelot was officially introduced as the nouveau by the sham professor.
It is not a sinecure to be the nouveau. One is the butt of endless jokes, and has to take them meekly; one is at everybody's beck and call, to pick up a brush, or to run for a ha'porth of bread or a penn'orth of fried potatoes. ”

“ O, there the young gentlemen are going to play a trick on the purser. For God's sake, let us go," and the unhappy man absolutely dragged the Goblin away with him.
When they next halted, it was at the edge of a broad and boundless prairie, in the middle of an oak opening.
"I see," said the Haunted Man, without waiting for his cue, but mechanically, and as if he were repeating a lesson which the Goblin had taught him,—"I see the Noble Savage. He is very fine to look at! But I observe under his war-paint, feathers, and picturesque blanket, dirt, disease, and an unsymmetrical contour. ”