Mascot

“ The tenderness toward little children which the war has shown forth so vividly has been a revelation of an inherent sweetness in the boys’ natures; this fondness for children other than their own, being, I believe a distinctive characteristic of our American men. Any number of companies have mascots, little French boys, orphans usually, whom they dress in miniature uniforms, take about from place to place with them, and, of course, spoil quite shamelessly. And in every unit that possesses a mascot you find boys whose dearest wish is to adopt the little fellow as his own and take him back home ”

“ The English mascots are very varied, and pertain to different counties and localities. A Northamptonshire regiment's mascot is some hairs of the regimental goat enclosed in a glass disc. The Irish charms are generally the four-leafed shamrock in Connemara marble.
A German iron medal is a sailor's mascot against drowning, and bears the Latin motto "In tempestate securitas." ”

“ Coeval with their revival of primitive language-moulds in their slang, many of our college societies and sporting clubs and associations have revived the beliefs just mentioned in their mascots and luck-bringers—the other side of the shield showing the "Jonahs" and those fetiches of evil import. Even great actors, stock-brokers, and politicians have their mascots. We hear also of mascots of regiments and of ships. A little hunchback, a dwarf, a negro boy, an Italian singing-girl, a child dressed in a certain style or colour, all serve as mascots. ”

“ Anyone of a handy disposition can make mascots that will bring luck to him or herself, as well as to countless friends. In addition, they may be made for selling at bazaars or even for profit in shops. ”

“ When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there -- in sunny weather -- stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A home without a cat -- and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat -- may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title? ”

“ His partner, the mistress of the domicile, did not thwart him, but strove as best she could to make her husband’s home as comfortable as possible.
He had a goat (which he had taught to perform many tricks) , a monkey, two dogs, some guinea pigs, and a cat or two—​he had always displayed throughout his career a great partiality for animals—​and he was an adept in taming them, and putting them through various performances for the amusement of himself, family, and friends. ”

“ To me in my childhood, elves and fairies of all sorts were very real things, and my dolls were as really children as I was myself a child. ”

“ Before me and beside me sat a row of the comeliest young men, clad in black gowns and wearing on their shoulders 112 long hoods trimmed with white fur. Who and what they were I know not, for I preferred not to learn, lest by chance they should not be so mediæval as they looked. ”

“ Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens?
If all the world were falcons, what of that?
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
But he not less the eagle. ”

“ We hold our greyhound in our hand,
Our falcon on our glove;
But where shall we find leash or band,
For dame that loves to rove? ”

“ The Calvinists illustrate their belief by a single illuminating word, Cat-hold, and the Arminians by another, Monkey-hold. Could you find better illustrations? The cat takes up the kitten and carries it in its mouth; the kitten is passive, the cat does everything. But the little monkey holds on to its mother, and clings with might and main. Those who have watched the "cat-hold" in the house, and the "monkey-hold" out in the jungle, can appreciate the accuracy of these two illustrations. ”

“ Once, as I passed by a cottage, there came out a lovely fairy child, with two wondrous toys, one in each hand. The one was the tube through which the fairy-gifted poet looks when he beholds the same thing everywhere; the other that through which he looks when he combines into new forms of loveliness those images of beauty which his own choice has gathered from all regions wherein he has travelled. Round the child’s head was an aureole of emanating rays. As I looked at him in wonder and delight, round crept from behind me the something dark, and the child stood in my shadow. ”

“ Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate,—and meantime it is only puss and her tail. How long before our masquerade will end its noise of tambourines, laughter, and shouting, and we shall find it was a solitary performance? ”

“ When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen.”
Indicating with a reserved gesture that this was just the sort of loony thing I should have expected her to think as a child, I returned to the point. ”

“ Now, if the question were to destroy a lion, a tiger, a cat, a hyena, I could understand it; but to deprive an antelope or a gazelle of life, to no other purpose than the gratification of your instincts as a sportsman, seems hardly worth the trouble. ”

“ Here I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I used to be papa’s doll-child. And the children, in their turn, have been my dolls. I thought it fun when you played with me, just as the children did when I played with them. ”

“ Though the large runt pigeon, with its massive beak and its huge feet, differs from its blue and barred progenitor the rock, it is a pigeon still. Though the slender Italian greyhound has a strange contrast with the short-legged bull-dog, they are both dogs in their teeth and in their skull. The mouse, even, has not been transmuted into the cat, nor the hen into the turkey, nor the duck into the goose, nor the hawk into the eagle, and still less the monkey into the man. ”

“ But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport; because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself. ”

“ ‘Mine is a long and a sad tale!’ said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.
‘It is a long tail, certainly,’ said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; ”

“ The wand waved; the Adam's Apple leapt, and they were off. What followed cannot be indicated typographically. But if a cat were a sawmill, and a dog were a gigantic cart full of tin cans bouncing through a stone-paved street, and that dog and that cat hated each other and were telling each other so, it would sound much like it. ”

“ THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were— Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. ”

“ The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. ‘Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?’ he asked.
‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’
These were the verses the White Rabbit read:—
‘They told me you had been to her, And mentioned me to him: She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. ”

“ This is the reason why the presence of cats exercises such a magic influence upon highly-organized men of intellect. This is why these long-tailed Graces of the animal kingdom, these adorable, scintillating electric batteries have been the favorite animal of a Mahommed, Cardinal Richelieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland." ”

“ LITTLE BOY BLUE The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new
And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there. ”

“ But a time came when her patience gave out; and wearying of being a lion, she became a bear in nature as in name, and returning to her den, growled awfully when ordered out. ”

“ "'Tis a strange calling!" muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, "to go through life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may happen to come out of other men's throats. ”

“ When I meet a cat, I say, “Poor Pussy!” and stop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care. ”

“ The fox when it sees a flock of herons or magpies or birds of that kind, suddenly flings himself on the ground with his mouth open to look as he were dead; and these birds want to peck at his tongue, and he bites off their heads. ”

“ I wish wearing flat-irons on our heads would keep us from growing up. But buds will be roses, and kittens, cats,—more's the pity!" ”

“ You shall be my pet, and my poppet, and my dearest little duck all the days of your life." ”

“ It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to itself ‘The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! ”

“ He obliged Cinderella to sit down, and, putting the slipper to her little foot, he found it went on very easily, and fitted her as if it had been made of wax. ”

“ "And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in the world; and I shall be, till people behave themselves as they ought to do. And then I shall grow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. So she begins where I end, [159] and I begin where she ends; and those who will not listen to her must listen to me, as you will see. ”

“ The schoolboy who wrote in his composition, "A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there," should have made a great naturalist. ”

“ She had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge fur, and rolled herself up trembling like a cat. ”

“ One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it:—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering) ; so you see that it couldn’t have had any hand in the mischief. ”

“ ‘I thought you did,’ said the Mouse. ‘—I proceed. “Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—“’
‘Found what?’ said the Duck.
‘Found it,’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: ‘of course you know what “it” means.’
‘I know what “it” means well enough, when I find a thing,’ said the Duck: ‘it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?’
The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, ‘ ”

“ There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there. ”

“ So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. ”

“ IN the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant—a new Elephant—an Elephant’s Child—who was full of ‘satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. ”

“ you make one quite giddy.’
‘All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. ”

“ The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr Garland’s and his son’s, and, as the old people and the young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising dignity. ”

“ THE FOX AND THE CROW
A Crow was sitting on a branch of a tree with a piece of cheese in her beak when a Fox observed her and set his wits to work to discover some way of getting the cheese. Coming and standing under the tree he looked up and said, "What a noble bird I see above me! Her beauty is without equal, the hue of her plumage exquisite. If only her voice is as sweet as her looks are fair, she ought without doubt to be Queen of the Birds." The Crow was hugely flattered by this, and just to show the Fox that she could sing she gave a loud caw. ”

“ There is something very independent about French balloons—you feel you couldn't make a pet of one. ”

“ "They are lovely pigeons to look at and their eyes are full of lessons to learn," said Wiffle the Chick. "Maybe you will tell me why you have their feet wrapped in bandages, hospital liniment bandages full of hospital liniment smells? Why do you put soft mittens on the feet of these pigeons so lovely to look at?"
"They came back yesterday, they came back home," was the answer. "They came back limping on their feet with the toes turned in so far they nearly turned backward. ”