Obol

“ Der syrische und der aus Judäa stammende ist der schlechteste, er ist schwer, dicht, mit Wolfsmilch und Erbsenmehl verfälscht. Der Saft, in der Menge von 1 Drachme oder 4 Obolen mit Honigmeth oder Wasser genommen, hat die Kraft, nach unten Galle und Schleim abzufahren, um aber den Bauch zu öffnen, reichen 2 Obolen mit Sesam oder irgend einem anderen Samen hin. Zum kräftigeren Purgiren dagegen werden 3 Obolen Saft, 2 Obolen schwarze Nieswurz und 1 Drachme Salz gegeben. ”

“ And Miriam bowed her head and answered, “As you will, Obil—next year.”
But the child never went with him to the desert. For that year, while Obil was gone deep into the South silence, the long drouth swept out of the wilderness with such terrible heat as no [9] one living had ever known. The fierce beasts came down from the mountains into the tilled fields and upon the herds. And the fiery Wheel came one day and lit Obil’s field of grain and killed the cattle and the sheep that were left, and devoured his little vine-covered home. ”

“ Can a man please God with these things?” said the man Obil, and a great trembling fell upon him.
“Was it not a Curse, then?” he asked himself, going back to that day of dumb agony when he stood, bereaved, before the uncle of his dead Miriam. Something in the pure blue peace of the sky above that Face made him think of her and see her once more, as with holy joy she lit her Sabbath candles and chanted from the sacred song that she loved: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the Soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. ”

“ Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy face, O Lord.” For he remembered how he had seen that fierce Wheel suddenly snuffed out before the rushing winds, and he knew by this what must be the angry breath of Jehovah upon the wicked; still Obil feared nothing in those old days, neither the tempests of the desert nor the fires of the wilderness nor the avenging hand of God, for his heart was good then, his hands pure. ”

“ No huge elemental turmoil of that wide life ever disturbed Obil. Sweeping fires of the wilderness, thunderings, earthquakes, winds, all gave him joy. Often he had wheeled his horse to chase the dry wild artichoke—the cursèd Wheel, when caught in the wilderness flames it was turned into a ball of fire, and, lifted and tossed in the fierce wind, eagerly kindled new fires in its wild flight.
Other men feared this fiery thing which maddened horses and camels and set vast tracts of wilderness on fire, but not Obil. ”

“ For he hates this house. Here died the lady Sarah, his wife. Here lived and died his son, the leper, hidden from the world.
“And”—here the beggar’s face again touched hotly the face of Obil—“didst thou know Obil, the Desert-lover, and Keeper of Camels for Abdul’s Caravan? His wife Miriam was niece to the great rabbi. It was the son of Obil and Miriam they took with deceit and hid away deep, deep in the inner courts of the palace here, to be companion of their son, the leper.
“Art thou Obil? Go, go! Let them tell thee these things in Hebron! ”

“ When the first heavy rains are over, the Ovambo begin to sow grain, &c.; but they plant tobacco in the dry [202] time of the year. Both sexes assist in tilling the ground, which, near the surface, consists of a flinty sand-soil. A short distance beneath blue clay appears. The land must be rich and fertile, as manure is seldom made use of. The only farm-implement we saw in use among the Ovambo was a kind of hoe of very rude workmanship. Instead of cultivating a whole piece of ground, as with us, they simply dig a hole here and there, in which they deposit a handful of corn. ”

“ Olof jumped out to lead the horse, for the road, as it now descended to the shore of the lake, spreading like a vague ocean of vapor beneath them, was almost perpendicular. Christian imagined that he was descending the sharp declivity of the globe itself, and about to plunge off into the void abysms of space. Two or three times the horse slipped until he was thrown back upon his haunches, and Olof came very near letting go the bridle and leaving him to his fate, together with the sleigh and the traveller. The latter was overwhelmed by a mortal indifference. The baron’s son! ”

“ Olof knew all the plans of the Queen, and went to tell the Princess what had been done, whereupon Hadvor earnestly entreated her to tell her what to do.
‘First and foremost,’ said Olof, ‘you must get a wide cloak to wear over your other clothes, when you are put into the mound. The Giant’s ghost will walk after you are both left together in there, and he will have two dogs along with him. He will ask you to cut pieces out of his legs to give to the dogs, but that you must not promise to do unless he tells you where Hermod has gone to, and tells you how to find him. ”

“ But they lived — so long, and so securely — that it seemed as though the heavens were oblivious of the sacrilege. At last Tamar died. Obal was full of years. On the night preceding her journey to the tomb, the patriarch slept by her side — for the last time — on the couch of ivory where she stiffly lay. He slept. In the morning his eunuchs, coming to the chamber, found him dead. His face, his staring eyes, were black with imprisoned blood. Around his throat had coiled itself a serpent, red of colour, as though a flame perfused its veins. ”

“ Even Opal's name is peculiarly fitted to her character and personality. The stone is both transparent and opaque, and nothing better describes our Opal. The last definitely heard of her she had been accepted as a princess of India, through an alleged marriage of Henri d'Orleans, the angel father of the diary. The opal is believed by many to have magical qualities. How appropriate if Opal came out of India, land of magic and mystery, of glitter and glamor, a perfect setting for the fairy world in which this master of make-believe always lived. ”

“ The first engraving on page 329 represents the architecture of the Ovambos. The houses, with their flat, conical roofs, are so low that a man cannot stand upright in them. But the Ovambos never want to stand upright in their houses, thinking them to be merely sleeping-places into which they can crawl, and in which they can be sheltered during the night. Two grain-stores are also seen, each consisting of a huge jar, standing on supports, and covered with a thatch of reeds. ”

“ Within a remarkable basin, surrounded by high hills and enclosing the great Dangra-Yum Lake and a cluster of small but well-built villages, Ombo, are lands which produce a profusion of barley at an altitude of 15,200 feet, a unique instance of cultivation at so great a height, no other cultivation occurring within 300 miles on either side. ”

“ At Hur the heart of Obah was seduced by the specious beauty of Star and Moon: he became a devotee to the fire and the serpent. For many years he lived there a life of study and peace; not till he was a very old man did the consummation of Fate overtake him. In a forecourt of a temple of Ashtoreth he saw a maiden priestess whose loveliness kindled his sere heart. Her name was Tamar. She was vowed to chastity. How foul the crime to draw her from the service of the Goddess Obal knew. But he seems to have been a man of daring eye and headlong lust. ”

“ For Ombra was not aware that she had been christened by a much more sober name. She stood as Jane Catherine in the books of the Leghorn chaplain—a conjunction of respectable appellatives which could not have any sinister influence. I doubt, however, whether she would have taken any comfort from this fact; for it was pleasant to think of herself as born under some wayward star—a shadowy creature, unlike common flesh and blood, half Italian, half spirit. ‘How can I help it?’ she said to herself. The people about her did not understand her—not even her mother and Francesca. ”

“ It was a warm, soft, balmy Summer evening; the world seemed almost to hold its breath in the mere happiness of being, as if a movement, a sigh, would have broken the spell. Mrs. Anderson put up her hair (which was still pretty hair, and worth the trouble) , and arranged her ribbons, and was about to draw round her the light shawl which Francesca had dropped on her shoulders, when all at once she saw Ombra coming through the garden alone. Ombra alone! ”

“ Olof was good-natured and gentle; he only put on his terrible airs out of vanity, so as to appear like a man. He began singing a Swedish song, both to amuse himself and to show his companion that he pronounced the mother-tongue more purely than the other members of the family. Remarking this, Christian determined to have a talk with him.
“Why,” said he, “did you not come with us when we went to the hunt? Have you never yet seen a bear erect?”
“Aunt would never let me,” replied the young lad, with a sigh.
“Aunt Karine?”
“There is no other at our house.” ”

“ The last I ever see of Oolong and his white tea-pot and umbrella is when he pauses for a moment to give his accusers a bit of his mind before vanishing into outer darkness.
The morning is quite wintry, and the people are clad in the seasonable costumes of the country. Huge quilted garments are put on one over another until their figures are almost of ball-like rotundity; the hands are drawn up entirely out of sight in the long, loosely flowing sleeves, while the head is half-hidden by being drawn, turtle-like, into their blue-quilted shells. ”

“ Sugden was regarding both, a mist seemed to roll away from the scene. How different the girl’s aspect was now!—soft with a dewy brightness in her eyes, and a voice that trembled with some concealed agitation; and there was a glow upon Bertie’s face, which made him handsomer. ‘My cousins are breaking their hearts over your going,’ he said.
‘Oh, no fear of their hearts!’ said Ombra, lightly; ‘they will mend. If the Cottage is let, the new tenants will probably be gayer people than we are, and do more to amuse their neighbours. ”

“ Nature has decked her so. I suppose I never, at my best, was anything like that.’
Ombra had improved very much since their arrival in Florence. Her fretfulness had much abated, and there was no envy in this sigh.
‘At your best, Ombra! My foolish darling, do you think your best is over?’ said the mother, with a smile.
‘I mean the bloom,’ said Ombra. ‘I never had any bloom—and Kate’s is wonderful. I think she gives a pearly, rosy tint to the very air. I was always a little shadow, you know!’
‘You will not do yourself justice,’ cried Mrs. Anderson. ‘Oh! Ombra, if you only knew how it grieves me! ”

“ But they did not advance; and she stood in an icy stupor, feeling as if she were not able to move.
‘Kate,’ said Ombra, from the door, ‘I have been like an evil spirit to you. I will not come in again, unless you will give me your hand and say I am to come.’
She put herself in motion then, languidly. How different a real moment of excitement always is from the visionary one which you go over and over in your own mind, and to which you get used in all its details! ”

“ No place could be more practical than Oban is, in its everyday life, nor any place more sweet and dreamlike to the pensive mood of contemplation and the roving gaze of fancy. Viewed, as I viewed it, under the starlight and the drifting cloud, between two and three o'clock this morning, it was a picture of beauty, never to be forgotten. ”

“ The features of the Ovambo women, though coarse, are not unpleasing. When young they possess very good figures. As they grow older, however, the symmetry gradually disappears, and they become exceedingly stout and ungainly. One of the causes of this is probably to be found in the heavy copper ornaments with which they load their wrists and ankles. ”

“ The lip and base have the favorite ovolo moulding; the body has two rows of fluting separated by a transverse band, charged with leaves, and with a swan in the centre. The neck of the vase is painted, and the same subject is given on each [297] side. It represents a chariot, drawn by four animals at full gallop, which appear to be intermediate between tigers and panthers. A winged genius directs them with his left hand, while with his right he goads them with a javelin. ”

“ The most remarkable of these exceptions occur in those species of Euonymus, which, contrary to the usual structure of the genus and family they belong to, have pendulous ovula; and, as I have long since noticed, in the perfect ovula only of Abelia.* In these, and in the other cases in which the raphe is on the outer side, or that most remote from the placenta, the ovula are in reality resupinate; an economy apparently essential to their development. ”

“ One is the same as another to her. I wish I had that happy disposition. How strange it is that people should be so different! What would kill me would scarcely move her—would not cost her a tear.’
‘Ombra, I am not so sure——’
‘Oh! but I am sure, mamma. She does not understand how things can matter so much to me. She wonders—I can see her look at me when she thinks I don’t notice. She seems to say, “What can Ombra mean by it?—how silly she is to care!”’
‘But you have not taken Kate into your confidence?’ said Mrs. Anderson, in alarm. ”

“ Christian helped Olof to guide the horse cautiously to the shore of the lake, and there the lad, who did not seem at all alarmed by their adventures, asked him whether he would get into the sleigh again, and go on to the major’s bostoelle.
[Pg 436]
“No, no,” said Christian, “I must go to Stollborg. Must I not turn to the right?”
“No,” said Olof, “try to walk forward in a straight line, while you count three hundred steps. If you take two steps more and don’t come to the rock, you have gone wrong.” ”

“ Adanson, in 1763, [17] states the Embryo to exist before fecundation, and that it receives its first excitement from a vapour or aura proceeding from the Pollen, conveyed to it through the tracheæ of the style, and entering the Ovulum by the umbilical cord.
Spallanzani, [18] who appears to have carefully examined the unimpregnated Ovula of a considerable variety of plants, found it in general to be a homogeneous, spongy, or gelatinous body; but in two Cucurbitaceæ to consist of a nucleus surrounded by three coats. ”