Spoils

“ And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children ”

“ But the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. ”

“ So, when evening drew on, the lad wanted to go away.
"I may just as well toddle straight home now," said he, "for it's no use my going back to the palace."
"Stop a bit till it's dark," said the old hag, "and then the king's foals will pass by here again, and then you can run home with them, and then no one will know that you have lain here all day long, instead of watching the foals."
So, when they came, she gave the lad a flask of water and a clod of turf. Those he was to show to the King, and say that was what his seven foals ate and drank. ”

“ If but a single arrow be discharged against us, the tender flesh of this thy babe shall be the clout that shall receive it—and if but one burning brand be thrown, this shall be the very first food given to the conflagration. It is thy child. I hate it as being thine. ”

“ I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
26:038:012 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
26:038:013 Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? ”

“ The stranger takes a pail, places it near the youth, and strikes him on the back; immediately the back opens, and forth flows rosy blood. The stranger fills the pail full and drinks it dry. Then he fills another pail with blood from the old man, slakes his brutal thirst, and says to the peasant: ‘It begins to grow light! ”

“ Cloven apart by the might of the bulls and the ploughman strong.
And terribly crashed and groaned, the ploughshare’s furrows along,
The clods uprent, of a man’s load each, and with sturdy stride
Trampling the path the hero followed, and aye flung wide
The teeth of the serpent over the clods upheaved by the share,
Ever heedfully turning his head, lest haply, or e’er he was ware,
The harvest fell of the Earth-born against him should rise: and with strain
Of brazen hoofs on laboured the while that fearsome twain. ”

“ The plague of boils on man, the deadly murrain amongst cattle, the bloody spectacles of the Flagellants—all were on the side of free thought and the free expression of thought, for all encouraged counsels of perfection. ”

“ Ploughing the land, sowing the seed, reaping the harvest, and winnowing the grain are often referred to. Our picture shows an Eastern husbandman ploughing. How different it is to ploughing in our own land! There is no coulter; and instead of the broad steel plough-share we see a pointed piece of wood. And the long handles with which our labourers guide their ploughs—where are they? The strong horses, too, harnessed one behind the other, are missing. Yes! none of these were used in Canaan. ”

“ The ploughing-scene in the opening—ploughing as she had witnessed it sometimes in her own neighbourhood, fresh, rough ground broken up for tillage, the plough drawn by four yoke of young white oxen new to their work and but half-tamed, has a simplicity and grandeur of effect not easy to parallel in modern art. The motif of the tale is that you often go far to search for the good fortune that lies close to your door. ”

“ If thou canst grasp this meaning, thou’rt like falcon strong.
Beat, then, the pinions of thy thoughts. Be hawk, ere long.
Thought’s pinions are bemired in thee, and heavy move;
Because thou feedest on clay; clay’s bread to thee, I’ll prove.
As flesh, bread is but clay. Trust not thereon for strength;
Or thou’lt remain, claylike, within the earth at length. ”

“ In hell—in Sheol, which may be understood of the depth of the earth, the very centre of it. Should we dig as deep as we can under ground, and think to hide ourselves there, we should be mistaken; God knows that path which the vulture's eye never saw, and to him the earth is all surface. ”

“ A fowl is fastened by the leg upon the grave, and a little rice placed near it; if it refuse to eat the rice, it is not killed; but if it eat, the head is cut off, and the blood sprinkled upon the grave ”

“ Thou art like the trap that was set on a dunghill. The sparrow saw it and said, 'Brother, what dost thou here?' The trap answered, 'I am fasting and praying.' The sparrow said, 'And what is that piece of wood by thee?' The trap said, 'My staff upon which I lean when I pray.' 'And what is that in thy mouth?' 'It is a little food for hungry wayfarers.' Then said the sparrow, 'I am hungry and a wayfarer.' 'Come hither then,' said the trap, 'and fear nothing.' But when the sparrow came, the trap caught it by the head ”

“ But the dead branch spoke from the sod,
And the eggs answered me again:
Because we failed dost thou complain?
Is thy wrath just? And what if God,
Who waiteth for thy fruits in vain,
Should also take the rod? ”

“ Now, the Glugs abide in the land of Gosh;
And they work all day for the sake of Splosh.
⁠For Splosh, the First, is the nation's pride,
⁠And King of the Glugs, on his uncle's side.
And they sleep at night, for the sake of rest ”

“ In each case the scene is a masquerade. In each case the figure is cloaked. In each, there is a quarrel—that is to say, angry words pass between the parties. In each the beholder is enraged. In each the cloak and sword fall upon the floor. ”

“ Such is the character of this people; and there are gentlemen here who take the feet of a fowl and hang them so as to show beneath the hem of their cloak, to make it appear as though they really bore a fowl. But hunger, in truth, is all they carry with them. ”

“ The Fold had earth walls and a living hedge, and to roll off that wall with a bloody nose, or better still, to climb over it and give the other fellow one, was enough to make any boy feel like a real hero, especially with the girls looking on and showing great concern. ”

“ They were passing through a tangled forest when the boy’s sharp eyes discovered from the lower branches through which he was traveling an old but well-marked spoor—a spoor that set his heart to leaping—the spoor of man, of white men, for among the prints of naked feet were the well defined outlines of European made boots. ”

“ The art of spoiling is within reach of the dullest faculty: the coarsest clown with a hammer in his hand might chip the nose off every statue and bust in the Vatican, and stand grinning at the effect of his work. ”

“ Their leafless branches, and the air
Filled with the arrows of the rain,
And heard amid the mist below,
Like voices of distress and pain,
That haunt the thoughts of men insane,
The fateful cawings of the crow. ”

“ The other—her ladyship—was eating jam out of an Apostle spoon. The spoon was in her mouth when a footman came in to mend the fire. She was fairly taken by surprise, and tried to push the whole concern into her mouth until the man should be gone. ”

“ Of course I know the native habit of cleaning a house by putting down a fresh layer of mud mixed with a little dung, which in time raises the floor considerably. But I was not to be put off by that. Below the smearing of the old man’s time might be a layer of earth thrown in to hide something. I glanced round. ‘May I borrow a spear?’ I asked. ”

“ The abuse increased, while the dead man, stretched on his back, gazed motionless with his large fixed eyes at the immense sky from which the night was falling. This earth heaped in his mouth was the bread which he had refused to give. ”

“ 'Grass no longer grows where my horse has trod.' Look here, before you and around you! There is not a grain of sand that has not been bathed in blood, and what is that grain of sand itself, if not the dust of death? But how rich this blood is, and how fertile is the dust! ”

“ Ay, true; the vulgar proverb says it is good to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth: so it is when one has one’s own family crest on it; but when it is a spoon on which people recognize their family crest, and cry out, ‘Stolen from our plate chest,’ it is a heritage that outlaws a babe in his cradle. ”

“ And they ever thronged about the corpse as when in a farmstead flies buzz about the full milk-pails, in the season of spring, when the milk drenches the vessels; even so thronged they about the corpse. ”

“ What shall we say of these frail midges preserved intact in their marly shrine? The frail creature, which our fingers could not grasp without crushing it, lies undeformed beneath the weight of the mountains! ”

“ If, instead of using a rag, I rub my warts with raw meat and then bury the meat, the wart will decay and disappear with the decay and dissolution of the meat. In like manner my shirt or stocking, or a rag to {215} represent it, placed upon a sacred bush, or thrust into a sacred well—my name written upon the walls of a temple—a stone or a pellet from my hand cast upon a sacred image or a sacred cairn—a remnant of my food cast into a sacred waterfall or bound upon a sacred tree, or a nail from my hand driven into the trunk of the tree—is thenceforth in continual contact with divinity ”

“ As we compare then these indications of sensibility, and these locomotive powers in the vegetable with the humbler endowments of such an animal as the sponge, which remains through life chained to one little spot of rock, giving out no indications of sensibility, we must at once be struck with the difficulties attending a true distinction, and the intimate relation that exists between the two kingdoms in question. ”

“ This extra-moral piece, given in great style, displays the prodigal about to partake of fruit which turns into skulls in his hands, then water becomes transformed into fire, rocks rend apart disclosing a corpse hanging from a gallows. As it swings in the wind, the limbs fall off and then collect again, on the ground, and arise to pursue the prodigal, and so on with similarly pleasing surprises. ”

“ In dread of spoiling all by over-rashness, he waits, perhaps for years, till he makes sure that the stone is the right one by seeing it with his own eyes, and learns the secret of the spring by which the chalice is opened. ”

“ A large wooden spoon dressed in garments, and which had been carried to the grave of a dead man, they pretend becomes inspired at the full of the moon, and will dance and jump about. After the proper preparations, the spoon, held by two women, became convulsed, and danced in good time to the song of the surrounding children and women. ”

“ A person was wrapped up in the skin of a newly-slain bullock, and deposited beside a water-fall, or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild, and unusual situation, where the scenery around him suggested nothing but objects of horror. ”

“ They choose particular beasts and, having stripped off the furs, clothe themselves with the spoil, decorated with parti-coloured spots, or fragments taken from the skins of fish that swim the ocean as yet unexplored by the Romans. ”

“ In the beginning, when man began to plough, when he had cut a furrow from one end to the other, he lifted his plough on to his shoulder, and when he had carried it back to the same end that he had begun from, he began again to plough thence. The Lord, in the form of an old man, passed by and said to him, ‘Not thus, my son, but when you make a furrow, turn your plough round at the same place to which you have cut the furrow, and plough back to the end from which you began.’ And thus the ploughman learnt to plough aright, as people plough at this day. ”

“ Behind my house, there is an old dry well, into which my light has fallen, it burns blue, and never goes out, and you shall bring it up again for me." Next day the old woman took him to the well, and let him down in a basket. ”

“ O ladle, ascend the all-nourishing earth; stride, O offering spoon, unto the atmosphere; O sacrificial spoon, go to the sky (dív) in company with the sacrificer; with the little spoon (sruvá) [as] calf, milk thou all the teeming, unirritated quarters. ”

“ Hand that proffers both poison and balm, and blends smiles with tears. The cradle, where the infant opens her tiny mouth to smile, is the miniature, the vague image of a coffin,—the living germ of a frightful end! ”

“ Sometimes a big spout rises up nearly to the outside rim of the deep hole, and then falls back with a sullen, vicious flop, as if some slimy spirit, there imprisoned, were angry and baffled at not being able to reach us, and smirch and scald us. ”

“ For everywhere We’re too materialistic,—eating clay, (Like men of the west) instead of Adam’s corn And Noah’s wine; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, Until we’re filled up to the throat with clay, And grow the grimy colour of the ground On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist The age’s name is. ”

“ She wept, nor would be pacified.
Up to the Tavern-door we post;
Of Alice and her grief I told;
And I gave money to the Host,
To buy a new Cloak for the old.
"And let it be of duffil grey,
As warm a cloak as man can sell!" ”