Tansy

“ Tickner Edwardes' knowledge of rural life and scenes is as thorough as his description of them is charming, and, if the general impression conveyed by Tansy is a little too idyllic for those who have been brought up in the rough school of Wessex agriculture, it is pleasant for a moment to lend ourselves to the illusion of his sunny romance. ”

“ Tansy is easily propagated by division of the clumps or by seed sown in a hotbed for the transplanting of seedlings. It does well in any moderately fertile garden soil, but why anyone should grow it except for ornament, either in the garden or as an inedible garnish, is more than I can understand. While its odor is not exactly repulsive, its acrid, bitter taste is such that a nibble, certainly a single leaf, would last most people a lifetime. Yet some people use it to flavor puddings, omelettes, salads, stews and other culinary dishes. ”

“ Ilse told her on their way to the Tansy Patch. “She never goes out anywhere—not even to church—but I guess it’s because of the scar on her face. They’re not Blair Water people—they’ve only been living at the Tansy Patch since last fall. They’re poor and proud and not many people visit them. But Teddy is awfully nice, so if his mother gives us some black looks we needn’t mind.”
Mrs. Kent gave them no black looks, though her reception was rather distant. ”

“ Tann′ate, a salt of tannic acid.—adjs. Tann′ic; Tannif′erous, yielding tannin.—n. Tan′-ride, an enclosure spread with tan for riding.—Tannic acid, an acid forming the astringent principle of the bark of oak and other trees, used in tanning and in medicine. [Fr. tannin.]
Tanrec=Tenrec (q.v.) .
Tansy, tan′zi, n. a genus of composite plants allied to Artemisia—Common tansy is a bitter, aromatic plant with small yellow flowers, common on old pasture: a pudding or cake flavoured with tansy, eaten at Easter. [O. Fr. tanasie, through Late L., from Gr. athanasia, immortality.] ”

“ One native herb, however, much in use among our fore-fathers is now seldom seen in kitchen gardens—we mean Tanacetum vulgare, the common tansy, the dull yellow flowers of which are often conspicuous by the side of streams. The young leaves and juice of this plant were formerly employed to give color and flavor to puddings, which were known as tansy cakes, or tansy puddings. ”

“ Or perhaps, for a choice of emblems, you would better take a yet more homely and familiar scent: the cool fragrance of lilacs drifting through the June morning from the old bush that stands between the kitchen door and the well; the warm layer of pungent, aromatic air that floats over the tansy-bed in a still July noon; the drowsy dew of odour that falls from the big balm-of-Gilead tree by the roadside as you are driving homeward through the twilight of August ”

“ The background of Tansy consists in the shepherd's seasons of the Sussex downs (for Tansy, a splendid type of advanced though rustic womanhood, is a shepherdess) , and the plot of the story is that of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, with the convenient variation that the villain of the piece, having his pockets stuffed with cartridges, disappears (as villains should) in a cloud of malodorous smoke. Mr. ”

“ Prior says that the French name of the tree, cormier, is derived from an ancient Gaulish word courmi, which seems to suggest the modern Welsh cwrw, beer.
Tansy (Tanacetum) is believed to be simply a corruption of athansia, immortality. I gather that we got the name through the French athanasie, in which, of course, the th is sounded as a t. In all probability it was originally applied to some plant more deserving of being credited with immortality.
A few miscellaneous names may here be given. Thorough wax is a name for Chlora perfoliata, also known as yellow wort. ”

“ It happened that Ba-po-wash had dried the choice parts of a fat bear, intending in the spring to make a feast to his medicine, and a few days previous to this time, while we were absent at our hunting camp, Ais-kaw-ba-wis had said to the old woman, the mother of Ba-po-wash’s wife, “The Great Spirit has signified to me that all things are not as they should be. Send out and see, therefore, if the fat bear which your son has hung up for a feast to his medicine is all where it was left.” ”

“ She turns towards the three gipsies.
Tansie. Nat’s in a sorry way, this morning—baint you, Nat?
Nat. Let I be. You do torment anyone till they scarce do know if they has senses to them or no.
Tansie. You’re not one to miss what you never had, Nat.
Chris. Let the lad bide in quiet, will you. ’Tis a powerful little nagging wench as you be.
Julia. Why are you heavy and sad this fine day, Nat?
Tansie. ’Tis love what’s the matter with he, mistress.
Julia. Love? O, that’s not a thing that should bring heaviness or gloom, but lightness to the heart, and song to the lips. ”

“ It was taper-time; when the tired earth puts on its cloak of mists and shadows, when the enchanted woods are stirred with light footfalls and slender voices of the fairies, when all the air is full of delicate influences, and even the beaux, seated at their dressing-tables, dream a little.
A delicious moment, thought Tannhäuser, to slip into exile.
The place where he stood waved drowsily with strange flowers, heavy with perfume, dripping with odours. Gloomy and nameless weeds not to be found in Mentzelius. ”

“ I fall! Stop! Spare me!—Slay me!
[Tannhäuser enters into an ecstasy.
This is death.
[The evil and averse Hathoör, or Venus, who hath arisen in the place of the Great Goddess, lifteth up her voice and chanteth:—
Venus.
Isis am I, and from my life are fed
All showers and suns, all moons that wax and wane,
All stars and streams, the living and the dead,
The mystery of pleasure and of pain. [Pg 28]
I am the mother! I the speaking sea!
I am the earth and its fertility!
Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me—
To me! ”

“ One was the old woman; the other was a man clothed with a sumptuous and flashing splendour. The woman seemed to clutch and beseech from him something against his will. The man broke from her and struck her brutally back into the tent, where she lay, whimpering and invisible. Observing Tansey, he walked rapidly to the table where he sat. Tansey recognized him to be Ramon Torres, a Mexican, the proprietor of the stand he was patronizing.
Torres was a handsome, nearly full-blooded descendant of the Spanish, seemingly about thirty years of age, and of a haughty, but extremely courteous demeanour. ”

“ Tannhäuser is usually performed on Saturday night, and Venus has to be put away altogether before eleven o’clock service on Sunday morning. You leave her at the church door. She wouldn’t go at all well with the Litany and the Penitential Psalms—in fact one prays to be delivered from her, and, poor dear, how they would bore her! And when you come out of church again, she is gone. She has not gone really, she has only gone elsewhere, and she often turns up again. And now I’m going to talk sense, although I have been talking sense all the time, really. Amn’t I a shocking old woman, Reggie? ”

“ When I marry her she is young—seventeen year—bonita. Like the rest she ees become old and—what you say!—tough? I am the same—young all the time. To-night I resolve to dress myself and find another wife befitting my age. This old woman try to scr-r-ratch my face. Ha! ha! Meester Tansee—same way they do entre los Americanos."
"And this health-food you spoke of?" said Tansey.
"Hear me," said Torres, leaning over the table until he lay flat upon it; "eet is the chili-con-carne made not from the beef or the chicken, but from the flesh of the señorita—young and tender. ”

“ He and his brother were the recognised leaders in all deeds of darkness; they gloried in bloodshedding, and in war, and in cannibalism; and they could always command a following of desperate men, who lived in or about their own village, and who were prepared to go anywhere and do anything at Miaki’s will.
The Tannese had hosts of stone idols, charms, and sacred objects, which they abjectly feared, and in which they devoutly believed. They were given up to countless superstitions, and firmly glued to their dark heathen practices. ”

“ Tanning Materials.—Tannin or tannic acid is abundantly formed in a very large number of plants, and secreted in such diverse organs and members as the bark, wood, roots, leaves, seed-pods, fruit, &c. The number of tannins which exists has not been determined, nor has the constitution of those which do exist been satisfactorily settled. ”

“ When you come to think of it, this was an embarrassing question, especially for Carey, who had believed that Tannis understood the game, and played it for its own sake, as he did.
"I don't understand you, Tannis," he said hurriedly.
"You have made me love you," said Tannis.
The words sound flat enough on paper. They did not sound flat to Tom, as repeated by Lazarre, and they sounded anything but flat to Carey, hurled at him as they were by a woman trembling with all the passions of her savage ancestry. Tannis had justified her criticism of poetry. ”

“ Knowing how meanly the Tannese treated the Spirits whom they worshiped in Heathenism,—giving them the scraggiest fish, the poorest bananas, and the smallest yams,—we rejoiced in this Christian liberality!!"
Referring to exaggerated Newspaper rumors she says: "Tanna bulks largely in some minds, though it is only a small Island, a little larger than Arran! We had noticed that our Civil War was telegraphed not only to the Australian papers, but to San Francisco, and even to the London Standard. We have been receiving letters of condolence from friends, who think our lives in danger!" ”

“ Tanner was caught when a boy, and lived as an Indian, even in religion. The Great Spirit constantly appears in his story as a moral and protecting deity, whose favour and help may be won by "prayers, which are aided by magical ceremonies and dances. Tanner accepted and acted on this part of the Indian belief, while generally rejecting the medicine men, who gave themselves out for messengers or avaters of the Great Spirit. Tanner had frequent visions of the Great Spirit in the form of a handsome young man, who gave him information about the future. ”

“ Then some one builds a magic lodge, and prays to the Great Spirit. Tanner often did this, and he would then dream how the Great Spirit appeared to him as a beautiful young man, and told him where he would find game, and prophesied other events in his life. It is curious to see a white man taking to the Indian religion, and having exactly the same sort of visions as their red converts described to the Jesuit fathers nearly two hundred years before.
Tanner saw some Indian ghosts, too, when he grew up. ”

“ She who loves not, she shall cleave unto thee,
Thou the unwilling!”
Peer of Gods is he, equal soul to theirs,
Who lingers in thy passionate embrace:
Whose languor-laden kiss
Cleaves where thy bosom is
A throne of beauty for thy throat and face!
In these dark joys and exquisite despairs,
O Love, let Death lay finger unawares! [Pg 104]
Landgrave.
Passion and music—but no Principle!
How different is Tannhäuser!
(To the unknown minstrel) You, sir, next!
Sing of pure love and noble womanhood.
Our court loves not these wastrel troubadours,
Loose locks, Hushed faces, soul’s unseemliness. ”

“ She felt an alien in it; and as she looked round it she thought of how her little room at Les Solitudes where, with such an untroubled heart, she had slept and waked for so many years.
Three large photographs of Tante hung on the walls, and their eyes met hers as if with an unfaltering love and comprehension. And on the dressing-table was a photograph of Gregory; the new thing in her life; the thing that menaced the old. She went and took it up, and Gregory's face, too, was suddenly strange to her; cold, hard, sardonic. ”

“ It was Tanis for whom he was longing.
"I thought I was so smart and independent, cutting Tanis out, and I need her, Lord how I need her!" he raged. "Myra simply can't understand. All she sees in life is getting along by being just like other folks. But Tanis, she'd tell me I was all right."
Then he broke, and one evening, late, he did run to Tanis. He had not dared to hope for it, but she was in, and alone. Only she wasn't Tanis. She was a courteous, brow-lifting, ice-armored woman who looked like Tanis. She said, "Yes, George, what is it?" ”

“ But to return to my beautiful river and glorious rapids, which are to be treated, you see, as a man treats a passionate beauty—he does not oppose her, for that were madness—but he gets round her. Well, on the American side, further down the river, is the house of Tanner, the Indian interpreter, of whose story you may have heard—for, as I remember, it excited some attention in England. He is a European of unmixed blood, with the language, manners, habits of a Red-skin. He had been kidnapped somewhere on the American frontiers when a mere boy, and brought up among the Chippewas. ”

“ When she reached her bedroom her husband was still asleep, and although she feared to wake him, she could no longer contain herself, and falling on her knees with her face in the bedclothes, so that she might not be heard, she cried to her Maker to have mercy on her child. She was not a woman much given to religious exercises, but she prayed that night such a prayer as had not been prayed in Tanner’s Lane since its foundation was laid. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife? ”

“ It is this tannin which gives the small boy, with his green apples, excruciating pains. It will be recalled that the tannin from the bark of trees, so toughens the elastic skin of animals that we can wear this skin for shoes. ”