Potage

“ I left the carriage to walk round the old mosque and saw beyond a fence some potters at work. There was the clay being kneaded by women into lumps of suitable size, and the potter sitting on the ground and turning his simple horizontal wheel with one foot, while with skilful touches of both hands he shaped the vessel. Almost every village in India possesses a potter. ”

“ The fete holds Potiphar, whose duties press And keep him captive till the set of sun; Whilst I, a-faint, the privilege of my sex, Await thee here, knowing thy daily round Had naught to stay it in the priestly show. For what, to thee, the mummified Gods of On? Art thou not servant to a mightier lord? Nor thyself art seen, nor offerings from thee grace The inner shrines. ”

“ Pott, masculine, ‘pot,’ a Low German word; compare Dutch pot, English pot, and the equivalent Scandinavian pottr. From the Teutonic cognates are derived those of French pot and Spanish pote. The Teutonic word is said to be of Keltic origin; compare Welsh pot, Gaelic poit. Topf is not akin. —
Pottasche, feminine, equivalent to English potash; hence French potasse, Italian potassa.
Pracht, feminine, ‘state, pomp, magnificence,’ from Middle High German and Old High German praht, braht, masculine and feminine, ‘noise, shouting.’ The evolution in meaning is similar to that of hell ”

“ It is for them to provide for their household, and watch over them, and govern and control them; they are potters to mould you, and when you are sent forth to the nations of the earth, you go to gather the clay, and bring it here to the great potter, to be ground and moulded until it becomes passive, and then be taken and formed into vessels, according to the dictation of the presiding potter. ”

“ So in the forms and designs of the pottery we watch a steady upward march, the progress growing faster as the standard of achievement rises. Curves and circles take the place of zigzags and triangles. The potter plays tricks with the colour of his clay, daubs it with red, burns it in patches. ”

“ If I be pushed to the avowal, I am sorry it is Potts. Algernon Sydney do a deal, but they can't do everything,—not to say that captious folk see a certain bathos in the collocation with my surname. Can a man hope to make such a name illustrious? Can be aspire to the notion of a time when people will allude to the great Potts, the celebrated Potts, the immortal Potts? ”

“ Pottage declared when she was responding to the280 good wishes of her guests, “for the longer I live, the more I enjoy myself. Oh, dear, I do wish I’d have been a month or two younger though, and then Letitsia could have been with us this afternoon. She has been away a time. Talk about Brussels sprouts, she will be a Brussels sprout by now, and no mistake. You mark my words, Mrs. Bugbird, that child’ll come home a walking maypole.” ”

“ Am I to be great in Art, or illustrious in Letters? Is there to be an ice tract of Behring's Straits called Potts's Point, or a planet styled Pottsium Sidus? And when centuries have rolled over, will historians have their difficulty about the first Potts, and what his opinions were on this subject or that?”
Then came a low soft sound of half-suppressed laughter, and then the rustle of a muslin dress hastily brushing through the trees. I rushed out from my retreat, and hurried down the walk. No one to be seen,—not a soul ”

“ Pott, raising his voice, and then suddenly depressing it; “I said, Serpent, sir—make the most of it.”
When you have parted with a man, at two o’clock in the morning, on terms of the utmost good-fellowship, and he meets you again, at half-past nine, and greets you as a serpent, it is not unreasonable to conclude that something of an unpleasant nature has occurred meanwhile. So Mr. Winkle thought. He returned Mr. Pott’s gaze of stone, and in compliance with that gentleman’s request, proceeded to make the most he could of the “serpent.” ”

“ For a certain Potts, a creature who, in reality, had no existence; “For who is Potts?” said I. “Potts is no more a substance than Caleb Williams or Peregrine Pickle; Potts is the lay figure that the artist dresses in any costume he requires—a Rachero to-day, a Railway Director to-morrow. What an absurdity in the importance we lend to mere names! Here, for instance, I take the label off the port, and I hang it round the neck of the claret decanter: have I changed the quality of the vintage? have I brought Bordeaux to the meridian of Oporto? ”

“ There is always a good sale for them, and a potter in India flourishes exceedingly. Even now there is a woman passing [Pg 233] us with a pot balanced on her head and a child on her hip. She swings along in the dust with a graceful gliding step, for she has been used to carrying things on her head almost from babyhood. These pots are brittle enough and frequently get broken, and even the poorest households must have a supply of them. ”

“ I had read of the potter's clay and wheel in Scripture, but it had never occurred to me that the pots we use were not such as had come down unbroken from those days, or grown on trees like gourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear that so fictile an art was ever practiced in my neighborhood. ”

“ It is poor Madame Potecki, who earns her solitary supper by 'One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four;' who has not a treasure in the world—except a young Hungarian lady, who is almost a daughter to her. ”

“ What would you say if a person named Potts were to make the offer of his hand? I mean, if he were a man in all respects acceptable, a gentleman captivating in manner and address, agreeable in person, graceful and accomplished,—what would you reply to his advances?”
“Really, sir, I am shocked to think of the humble opinion I may be conveying of my sense and judgment, but I'm afraid I should tell him it is impossible I could ever permit myself to be called Mrs. Potts.” ”

“ Rejecting upon those benign ends which the gods chose to make him serve, I can but marvel how lightly each of us may meet and scorn a casual Potts, unrecking his gracious and predestined office in the play of Fate. ”

“ On sweet and fragrant herbs they feed, amid verdant and grassy pastures, and drink ambrosial dew, divine potation: all resplendent alike in coeval youth; a placid serenity for ever smiles on their brows and lightens in their eyes; the consequence of a just temperament of mind and disposition, both in the parents and in the sons, inclining them to do what is great, and to speak what is wise. ”

“ Pott’s person was a bodyguard of one, a young lady whose ostensible employment was to preside over her toilet, but who rendered herself useful in a variety of ways, and in none more so than in the particular department of constantly aiding and abetting her mistress in every wish and inclination opposed to the desires of the unhappy Pott. ”

“ It may be assumed that all men everywhere may be expected to hit upon the device of burning clay vessels until they obtain some rude form of pottery and then develop the potter’s art to some extent. We may call this evolution. Not only can the making of pots and pans be adduced from all parts of the globe, but truly astonishing resemblances can be discovered between pottery from districts so remote that we cannot believe there can ever have been communication between them. ”

“ Kilns and burning form the pivot upon which the art of the potter turns. M. Doat has said, "A potter can no more express himself without his kiln than can a violinist without his violin," and yet there are some who try to make out by sending their work to some nearby pottery to be burned. Let it be at once understood that he who finds it impossible to procure and manage a kiln had best take to some other craft. ”

“ POTTERY—TILES, BRICKS
The manufacture of earthen vessels was one of the earliest, as it was one of the most widespread industries. From the end of the Stone Age onwards wherever suitable clay was to be found, the potter plied his trade. The Romans, who had brought the art of potting to a high pitch of excellence, introduced improved methods into Britain, where numerous remains of kilns and innumerable fragments of pottery testify to the industry and the individuality of the Romano-British potters. ”

“ Potts had gracefully described as "the golden age of Pericles."
To the end of his days he should be blithely, naïvely Greek; a dog of wretched field manners, pointing cattle and quail impartially, shamefully gun-shy, inconsequent, volatile, ignorant, forever paganly joyous without due cause. For him I should do what no one had been able to do for me—detain him in that "world of fine fabling" where everything is true that ought to be; where the earth is a running course, fascinating in its surprises of open road and tangled hedgerow; where mere indiscriminate smelling is keenest ecstasy ”

“ Objects of gold, bronze, glass, ivory, amber, clay, and bone were also used as ornaments.
If we examine the pottery in the barrows we find that a vessel of earthenware was usually placed at the back of the head of the body when it was not cremated. There were also cinerary urns, cups, usually called incense cups, which were certainly not used for incense, whatever may have been their purpose, food and drinking vessels. This pottery was not sun-dried, but burnt in a fire, though not made in a kiln, and the form of the vessels shows that the makers were ignorant of the use of a potter’s wheel. ”

“ It came to pass that on a day a man from the hills came into the village leading his little son. And when it was night, he went into the potuma, where the men slept, to pass the night, and he took with him the child. Now in the potuma was a man of the village who was fierce and violent in all his ways. When, therefore, he saw the hill man about to sleep in the potuma, he arose and beat the little child, saying, "What doest thou here, O child? Knowest thou not that this is a house for men? ”

“ We might begin by imagining Potts in search of this, that, or t'other,—love, happiness, solitude, climate, scenery, anything, in short. Let us fancy him on a journey, try and personate him; that would be the real way. Do you, for instance, be Potts, and I 'll be his sister Susan. It will be the best fun in the world, as we go along, to see everything, note everything, and discuss everything Potts-wise. ”

“ It was at this time, I remember, that the Argus first spoke of our town as "a gem at beauty's throat," and, touching the rare enterprise of our citizens, declared that, "If you put a Slocum County man astride a streak of lightning, he'd call for a pair of spurs."
For myself, I frankly mourned Potts. For I saw now that he had been truly and finely of that Greek spirit—one accepting gifts from the gods with a joyous young faith in their continuance. I felt that he had divined more of the lesson of Greek art than his one-time love could write down in papers unending. ”

“ But, if he may be judged from his appearance, the pale-faced potter is a man of quite another kind. It is by no mean; a cheerful spectacle this turning out of pottery hands in the dusk of evening. One and all - and there seem to be as many women as men, and as many children as either - they are as white as bakers, as the most careless of journeymen, who recklessly splash their shabby clothes with flour slop, and are not at all particular as to how much flour finds lodgement in their hair and whiskers, and in the folds of their neckerchiefs. ”

“ Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"
LXXXVIII.
"Why," said another, "Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marr'd in making--Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well." ”

“ At their Assemblies, when the Sagamite, or Pottage, which is the most essential Part of their meal, is boil’d in a great Pot, they place that Pot on the Stool of Ceremony above mention’d, and one of the Elders stretches out his Hands over it, muttering some Words between his Teeth for a considerable Time, after which, they fall to eat. ”

“ It is to be regretted that, among the Indians, this art, like that of basketry, is passing. The coming of civilisation has brought iron and tin cooking-vessels and ordinary tableware to take the place of the bowls, platters, and cups, the jars and bottles of clay, so full of individual charm. Not only to the collector and the student of ethnology is Indian pottery of value; the potter of to-day finds much that is helpful and suggestive162 in primitive processes, as well as in the forms and decoration. ”

“ PottersPotters yet more Inferior, may not wear any Doublets, nor their Cloth much below the Knee, nor sit on Stools, neither will any eat with them. But they have this Privilege, because they make the Pots, that when they are athirst being at a Hondrew’s House, they may take his Pot, which hath a Pipe to it, and pour the Water into their mouths themselves: which none other of these inferior degrees may be admitted to do: but they must hold their hands to their mouths and gape, and the Hondrews themselves will pour the Water in. ”

“ But a belief that the goddess whom they worship will punish insincerity prompts them to carry their proper tale of pots without scamping the number. There is, indeed, a tradition that a certain crafty woman once had recourse to the device of hiding in a big pot that represented her last husband several little pots that represented his precessors. ”

“ So, for Erin go bragh,
'Tis both Gospel and Law
For to ate, or to shpake or to swig,
If you have a great mind,
You surely will find
The Poteen's the best part of the pig!
The Poteen's the best part of the pig! ”

“ Pottage came in as magnificent as a queen-dowager in black satin to ask if her lodgers would give her the pleasure of their company in the parlour.
“I’ve got a few friends coming in to celebrate Christmas. Mrs. Bugbird’s here, and two of my unintendeds—Mr. Hopkins, the chandler—well, I thought I’d ask him, though he’s no more addition to anything than a nought, which is what he looks like—and then there’s Mr. Watcher. Yes, Watcher’s a good name for him, for he watches me like a dog watches a bone. He and Mr. Hopkins can’t bear the sight of one another. ”