Vellum

“ White and black we are warned against especially. The bookbinding authorities tell us that vellum, if exposed to a strong light, perishes and chips off like egg-shell; and we are warned to place vellum bound volumes with their backs to the wall, lettering the fore-edge with pen and ink, as was often done of old. ”

“ All of the letters of the text are cut out of each folio upon the finest vellum; and, being interlaced with blue paper, it is read as easily as the best print. The labor and patience bestowed upon it must have been excessive, especially when the precision and minuteness of the letters are considered. The general execution is admirable in every respect, and the vellum is of the most delicate and costly kind. Rodolphus II., of Germany, offered for it, in 1640, eleven thousand ducats, which was probably equal to sixty thousand at this day. ”

“ Vellum and parchment were interchangeable terms in medieval times; but parchment was commonly used. In early monastic days it was prepared by the monks themselves, being rubbed smooth with pumice-stone; later it was bought from manufacturers ready-made. It was not so expensive as vellum: the average price being two shillings per dozen skins as compared with eight shillings per dozen skins of vellum. For a Bible presented to Bury St. Edmunds Abbey, finest Irish (or Scottish) vellum was procured (c. 1121-48) . ”

“ You cannot imagine any thing more perfect of their kind and for their size, than are the beasts, birds, insects, fruits, and flowers. The vellum harmonises admirably, from its colour and quality. There are several comparatively large illuminations: some with very small figures; and two (one of St. John the Baptist, and the other of Christ mocked) are of great beauty in respect to force of colour. The initial capitals are executed with equal attention to taste in composition, and delicacy in colouring. This diminutive volume is only four inches high, by about two inches and three quarters wide. ”

“ Remembering the sergeant's warning, I decided to start at once for Mosita, twenty-five miles farther away from the border, leaving Vellum to bring on any further intelligence when the sergeant, who had been away all night watching the Boers, returned. We now traversed a fine open grassy country, very desolate, with no human habitation. The only signs of life were various fine "pows" [24] stalking sedately along, or "korans," starting up with their curious chuckle rather like the note of a pheasant, or a covey of guinea-fowl scurrying across the road and losing themselves in the waving grass. ”

“ They fitted me quite well.
“Just then Hessie stepped out of her corner and came to me in the dark. ‘Now, Vellum,’ says she, ‘just go with Griet, and when she tells you, steal out of the “laager” and follow her. Then walk as quickly as you can along the Lydenburg road until daybreak, when you must hide in the bush until night comes again. From there you can easily reach the Lydenburg “laager” before next morning.’
“She then took my two hands and pressed them very hard. ‘Vellum,’ says she, ‘we will never meet again ”

“ Of the more pliant, and therefore generally more convenient, substances there were many, such as animal skins and vegetable growths. Practically we might confine our attention to three of them: papyrus, parchment or vellum, and paper, the employment of which, each in turn, as a writing material became almost universal. But there are also others which must be mentioned.
In a primitive state of society leaves of plants and trees strong enough for the purpose might be taken as a ready-made material to receive writing. ”

“ With a little practice the novice may be able to ascertain what amount of leather is to be left out from the turning-in, so that the head-band can be neatly covered. The perfection in covering a book depends upon the leather being worked sharp round the boards, but with the grain almost untouched.
Paste should be always used for morocco, calf, russia and vellum, in fact for all kinds of leather; but in my humble opinion, all leather with an artificial grain should be glued; the turning-in may be with paste. The glue gives more body to the leather, and thus preserves the grain. ”

“ Marvellous, I grant you, are those passes of the swirling brush by which the velvet of the mantle is rendered—passes so light and seemingly so fortuitous, yet, seen at the right distance, so absolute in their power to create an illusion of the actual velvet. ”

“ Let us, then, follow the example of our forefathers; let us follow in the footsteps of their belief; and let us, like them, preserve our name, our tongue and our faith."
"We shall not fail in that pledge, father," answered Velleda.
"We shall show neither less courage nor less persistence than our ancestors," added Sacrovir. "Oh, how I shall be thrilled with ecstasy when I read those venerated lines which they have traced! But is the chirography of the Celtic or Gallic language the same exactly as the Breton, which we are accustomed to read, father?" ”

“ SCENE I Before the Castle of De Lerma---Time, sunset.
( Enter Velasco in the full costume of a knight of the eleventh century, followed by Alfonzo, his squire. )
Velasco
Home! home, at last, Alfonzo! There they shine, the old ancestral bulwarks, in the rays of the declining sun! A year has passed since last I gazed upon them---there they rise, the same, as when a careless child I play'd beneath their mighty shadows. How each nook prates of the olden time! The very air is fragrant as the breath of infancy! Old towers! ”

“ A slender maiden, almost as tall as Arwed himself, in a dark green riding-habit, her face partly concealed by a plumed casque, was just then reining in her foaming courser.
'Send to the wolf den in the cluster of fir-trees to the left of the road, and bring the venison which lies there,' said she to the groom who was running to meet her; then, throwing herself from the saddle with the grace of a riding-master, and with her hand wafting a greeting up to the windows of the hall, she hastened into the castle. ”

“ The terror that overwhelmed him when he realized that he was becoming a prey to his former aberrations may be imagined.
To shield Velma, I performed my experiments, when possible, while he was away from her. But she could not long be unaware of the moodiness, the haggard droop of his shoulders which accompanied his realization that the old malady had returned. The deepening terror in her expression was like a scourge upon my spirit—but I must wound her in order to cure. ”

“ When at last, after Velléda has attempted to kill herself, this knight of the doleful countenance has yielded and is lying at her feet, nothing less will serve him than to set all the powers of hell loose on the occasion. "I fell at Velléda's feet. ... Hell gave the signal for these terrible nuptials; the spirits of darkness howled from their abyss, the chaste spouses of our forefathers turned away their faces, my guardian angel hid his with his wings and returned to heaven." Even at the supreme moment this depressing hero is incapable of self-surrender; he is ashamed ”

“ VĒLĀRĬUM. [Amphitheatrum, p. 23.]
VĒLĬTES, the light-armed troops in a Roman army. [Exercitus, p. 169.]
VĒLUM (αὐλαία) .— (1) A curtain. Curtains were used in private houses as coverings over doors, or they served in the interior of the house as substitutes for doors.— (2) Velum, and more commonly its derivative velamen, denoted the veil worn by women. That worn by a bride was specifically called flammeum. [Matrimonium.] — (3) (Ἱστίον.) A sail. [Navis, p. 267.]
VĒNĀBŬLUM, a hunting-spear. This may have been distinguished from the spears used in warfare by being barbed ”

“ Jeli kept saying to the boy, who was helping him drive the herd. "And in every place there is feasting and light, and throughout the whole campagna you can see fireworks."
The boy was half asleep as he forced one leg after the other, and he made no response; but Jeli, who felt his blood stir within him at the sound of that bell, could not keep quiet, as if each one of those rockets that left their silent shining trails on the darkness behind the mountains burst forth from his soul.
"Mara also must be going to the festa of Saint John," he said, "because she goes every year." ”

“ She always dressed in velvet. No woman in Canada, has she but the faintest dash of native blood in her veins, but loves velvets and silks. As beef to the Englishman, wine to the Frenchman, fads to the Yankee, so are velvet and silk to the Indian girl, be she wild as prairie grass, be she on the borders of civilization, or, having stepped within its boundary, mounted the steps of culture even under its superficial heights. ”

“ And the Veldt was very wide, and the sea and its ships were far away, and over the weary stretch of grass, and rock, and sand, there was nothing on the horizon between desolate land and dominating sky but a waste looking like a chaos of purple and green, where no bird ever sang and no man ever lived, and God Himself was not. ”

“ He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other, the fairy huts in the flower-bed, the quiet evenings in the wood when he lay in the bracken and the little ants ran over his paws; the wonderful day when he first knew that he was Real. He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground. ”

“ The poor lad did everything as handily as a clever maiden would have done, and his father, following him with weary eyes in his operations about the hovel, sometimes smiled to think that the boy would be able to do for himself in case he were left alone in the world.
On days when the fever left him for a few hours, compare Menu would get up, all feeble as he was, and with his head wrapped in his handkerchief, would stagger out to the door to wait for Jeli while the sun was still warm. ”

“ Gleva (looking inscrutably.) No, I cannot conquer Rome.
[A moment's pause.]
Calpurnius: Listen!
Gleva: The sound upon the road has ceased.
Calpurnius: There are no longer men marching.
Gleva: All have gone over the hill to the sea.
Calpurnius: Yes. There's a freshness in the air, a breath of wind. The morning comes----
Gleva: I cannot conquer Rome.
[A trumpet rings out clear from the top of the hill. The morning is beginning to break. There is the strange light which comes when moonlight and the dawn meet.] ”

“ With these veils," cried Turgesius, "no longer delay;
Resistance is vain, we will quickly behold
Which robe hides the loveliest face in its fold;
These clouds shall no longer o'ershadow our bliss,
Let each seize a veil—and my trophy be this!"
He seized a white veil, and before him appear'd
No fearful, weak girl—but a foe to be fear'd! ”

“ Come, Gleva. We have little time. When the moon touches those trees I climb again.
Gleva: Yet, my lord, for one more moment think of me not as the foolish, conquered slave. Listen! Turn your head this way and listen.
Calpurnius: What shall I hear? Some nightingale pouring out love upon a moonlit night? He'll not say "Calpurnius" with so sweet a note as you.
Gleva: You'll hear no nightingale, nor any sound that has one memory of me in it. Listen, you'll hear--all Rome.
[He looks at her quickly. In the pause is heard the sound of men marching.] ”

“ Now and then a bird, aroused by the flame or the snap of a burning stick, rose from its nest and flew away; and wild-fowl flitted darkly down the pass, like the souls of heroes faring to Walhalla. When an owl hooted, a wolf howled far off, or a loon cried from the water below; the solemn fantasy took on the aspect of the unreal.
Valmond watched like one in a dream, and twice or thrice he turned faint, and drew his cloak about him as if he were cold ”

“ Arwed turned to go.
'Take care of yourself,' said the good woman in bidding him God speed. 'Naddock shows no mercy to an enemy. If you fall into his hands as an opponent, you are lost.'
'We are all in the hands of God,' answered Arwed with confidence; and, shaking hands with Jervis, he followed his guide into the forest.
CHAPTER XLIV. They had been traveling silently for some hours, when the forest opened, and an arm of the mountain which divides the Umea Lappmark lay before them, in all its awful magnificence. ”

“ The African sun, particularly upon the veldt, is not to be trifled with, and those who walk bareheaded in its rays must be prepared to pay the penalty of their folly. Seated on their horses, looking down at him, were a girl and boy of about his own age—that is to say, between thirteen and fifteen. ”

“ I have witnessed his panic at the thought of losing her, at the thought that some day she might give him up in disgust at his aberrations, and abandon him to the formless "thing" that haunted him.
Curious—to be of the world and yet not of it—to enjoy a perspective that reveals the hidden side of effects, which seem so mysterious from the material side of the veil. But I would gladly have given all the advantages of my disembodied state for one hour of flesh-and-blood companionship with Velma. ”

“ On the first day we went over the remains of the old Roman city of Verulam, and were shown its plan and walls, and further, the spot where the protomartyr of Britain passed over the stream, and the hill on which he was martyred. Nothing could have been more interesting and more instructive. Among those present were three middle-aged personages of the female sex, all of whom were chalk-marked on the back. One of these marks was somewhat effaced, as though the lady whose gown was scored had made a faint effort to brush it off, but had tired of the attempt and had abandoned it. ”