Vermillion

“ DIRECTIONS FOR USING TORTOISE-SHELL JAPAN Having thus prepared the varnish or japan, clean well the substance which is to be japanned; then lay vermillion, tempered with shell-lac varnish, or with drying oil, very thinly diluted with oil of turpentine, on the places intended to imitate the more transparent parts of the tortoise-shell; when the vermillion is dry, brush the whole over with black varnish, tempered to a due consistence with the oil of turpentine. When set and firm, put the work into a stove, where it may undergo a very strong heat, which must be continued a considerable time ”

“ He is too difficult to please, absolutely refusing to exhibit his work. What is one to do with such a gosse!"
The revenge of a general laugh at Vermillion's expense carried her up to the bedroom. The confident smirk of the Lucyesque beauty in Fragonard's sanguine drawing mocked her and she took more of the palliative than she first intended. After all, one was entitled to a Christmas gift. ”

“ He too had felt sorry for poor old Figente, she thought. "Let's all sit down, I'm worn out," she said, not knowing how to begin to ask what he thought of the ballet.
"You must be, but you also must be feeling very good about tonight," he said.
And all of a sudden she felt wonderful.
"I have a profound conviction," Semy was saying, spacing his words to reach Vermillion to whom he had taken an instantaneous dislike at Figente's, "that motion pictures are the open sesame of the human spirit. They make all the arts obsolete unless used in relation to the motion picture camera." ”

“ OIL TO MAKE THE HAIR GROW AND CURL Take of olive oil 1/2 a pint, oils of rosemary and origanum, of each 1/8 of an oz. Mix well and apply rather freely.
122. BEST SHAVING SOAP Take 4-1/2 lbs. white bar soap, 1 quart rain water, 1 gill of beef's gall, and 1 gill spirits of turpentine; cut the soap thin, and boil five minutes, stir while boiling, and colour with 1/2 oz. of vermillion; scent with oil of rose or almonds. 10 cents worth will positively make $6 worth of soap. ”

“ Men are grown-up children; boys are rude philosophers, artists, poets, what you will.
A cold, passionless man was Dr. Vermont, the one feeble flame of human feeling he had thrilled to having faded out of memory almost upon the death of his just buried young wife. She, too, had interested him, only differently, being of a less calculable and possibly less shallow order of being than the embryo great men of Lander’s. Widowhood had sundered him sharply from all personal ties, and left him all the freer to indulge his passion for experimental psychology. ”

“ It glowed like a lamp, and shed a faint illumination upon the dusk. The faded monotone of her voice murmured prayerfully above the weighted splash upon the stones, and awoke the essential impulse of existence. While such women lived and prayed for men, could the deeps of life be said to have closed? ’Tis an old-fashioned notion, but, like most old-fashioned things, ’tis the simplest and the best. It softened the hard retrospection of Dr. Vermont’s glance, and lent a wavering tenderness to his peculiar smile. ”

“ I cherish the hope that it is some one with a bosom not insusceptible to the thrill of romance, some one with a heart that still can beat to the swift measure of fear.
Anatole I have since seen in Paris. He is working steadily at some profession, and sharp [Pg 128] illness has made a saner and stronger man of him. Upheaval, after a while, when the elements quiet down again, generally brings reform. The Café Lander knows him no more, I have ascertained, and while he shrinks from mention of Dr. Vermont’s name, he is ever glad and grateful to talk of Henriette Lenormant. ”

“ In regard to our Roman authors, we can not more happily begin than with Vergil, who of all their poets and ours in the epic style, is without any doubt the one who comes nearest to Homer. Tho obliged to give way to Homer's heavenly and immortal genius, yet in Vergil are to be found a greater exactness and care, it being incumbent on him to take more pains; so that what we lose on the side of eminence of qualities, we perhaps gain on that of justness and equability. ”

“ He appears to have some trouble on his mind,’ said Mademoiselle, leaning her elbows on the table and her chin upon her folded hands.
‘He has fallen in love with you—that’s his trouble, Henriette. I assure you, up in Paris, he is the reverse of sad or worried. He is the life of Lander’s.’
Dr. Vermont achieved his purpose: he made her blush from neck to forehead.
‘You forget, François, that you are talking to a middle-aged woman of a very young man,’ she said, in surprise.
‘Not so middle-aged as that,’ laughed Dr. Vermont, unjoyously. ”

“ Work day and night on a conception limited and tried out this way and that. If amplification seems desirable afterward, Vergil shows many ways. [The citations are mainly descriptive.] Inspiration comes when it will, and does not obviate revision. Study nature: the ways of age, of youth, of woman, of servants and of kings, for appropriateness, as in Vergil; for so you learn to move, as Vergil by Euryalus. Study in others, especially in the ancient Greeks, their conceptions (inventa) without hesitating to borrow as Vergil from Homer. So may Rome ever excel in the arts and teach the world. ”

“ The passing of nearly a millennium of world-life after Homer's time made that impossible; and it is obviously unfair to compare any product of the refined and artificial society of the Augustan with the product of the simple and fresh life of the Homeric age when the world was young. But the Æneid has a grandeur, a grace, a polished beauty all its own; and, compared with the epic product of his own and later ages, Vergil's poem stands colossal—the unapproachable epic of the Roman tongue. ”

“ This was Vergil's abode, and in the noble castles set among the green enamelled meadows dwelt Homer, Horace, and Ovid, Electra, Hector, and Camilla.
Passing down a narrow walk into a region of semi-darkness, they entered the second circle, where Minos stood, judging the sinners and girding himself with his tail as many times as was the number of the circle to which the spirit was to go. ”

“ The clear expressive diction of Catullus' lyrics, full of old-fashioned turns, the sound social ideals of Vergil's Georgics, the buoyant idealism of the Aeneid and of Livy's annals speak the true language of these people. It is not surprising then that in Vergil's youth it is a group of fellow-provincials—returning sons of Rome's former emigrants—that take the lead in the new literary movements. They are vigorous, clever young men, excellently educated, free from the city's binding traditionalism, well provided also, many of them, with worldly goods acquired in the new rich country. ”

“ Vermilion is a permanent pigment, and may be used with water or oil, but cannot be used in enamel, as it volatilizes at a red heat. It possesses great body, weight, and opacity. Numerous pigments consisting of aniline colors thrown on a lead body, such as the oxide or carbonate, have largely taken the place of the true vermilion as a pigment, especially as they have a permanent red color, stand exposure fairly well, and change to a lighter color with age instead of a darker, as is the case with vermilion. ”

“ Dr. Vermont said nothing, but listened and attacked the third bottle. He reached across, and filled Anatole’s glass, and smiled upon him almost pleasantly.
‘Never mind Susanne, or any other perfidious fair, my lad. It comes to the same at the end, whether they have been faithful or not. They die, and we die, and sleep “a long, an endless, unawakeable sleep”. It’s half-past nine now,’ he added, looking at his watch. ‘In two more hours, we shall be starting out upon the road that has no ending, leads nowhither, unless it be to dark, bottomless space.’
‘Why so?’ asked Julien. ”

“ The Cid was armed and with him all the men of his emprise.
My lord the Cid spake to them even as you shall hear.
"Let all go forth, let no one here tarry in the rear,
Save only two footsoldiers the gates to watch and shield.
They will capture this our castle, if we perish in the field;
But if we win, our fortunes shall grow both great and fair.
Per Vermudóz, my banner I bid thee now to bear;
As thou art very gallant, do thou keep it without stain.
But unless I so shall order thou shalt not loose the rein."
He kissed the Cid's hand. Forth he ran the battle-flag to take. ”

“ Honest affection that makes no pretence of concealment, humanised it, and a magnanimous resolve filled its expression with cheering purport. The worst of us, you see, have our heroic moments, only it often happens that, like Dr. Vermont’s, they pass unnoticed in the dark.
‘There is happiness ahead for you yet, Anatole,’ he breathed quickly through his teeth, while he swung the unhappy young fellow’s arm once up and down, in warm emphasis to communicate the reassuring fluid to him. ”

“ The inconvenience of vermin he remedies without a comb, by plaistering up his hair with clay, which being dried on the head, and then washed with soap and water, makes him clean beyond conception; his teeth are constantly kept as white as ivory; for this purpose he uses nothing but a sprig of orange-tree, bitten at one end, until the fibres resemble a small brush; and no negro, male or female, is to be seen without this little instrument, which has besides the virtue of sweetening the breath. ”

“ For him absurdity lay at the bottom of all things—if not absurdity, something so much worse as to be beyond toleration.
Man in all his moods, he insisted, was a mixture [Pg 101] of grossness and absurdity, and it mattered little which of the two elements prevailed. The one excess worked mischief for himself, and the other mischief for his neighbours.
When the dinner-bell rang, Dr. Vermont appeared still smiling and humorously observant. He it was who spoke most, and most coherently, at table. Julien and Gaston swaggered a little, and their faces were pale and excited. ”

“ Vermilion is so called from the Italian word vermiglio (little worm,) given to the kermes or "coccus ilicis," which was used as a scarlet dye before the introduction of cochineal. It is a sulphuret of mercury, which previous to levigation is called Cinnabar; and is found native in quicksilver mines, as well as produced artificially. This is an ancient pigment, the κιννάβαρι of the Greeks, and the minium—a term now confined to red lead—of older writers. Pliny states that it was so esteemed by the Romans, as to have its price fixed by express law of state. ”

“ But it happens that, thanks to these deuced articles and those blessed Memoirs, people laugh in my face when I say that Véron has intellect. It is in vain for me to be vexed and angry, and shout out and appeal to people who have supped with him, good judges in the matter of wit, to believe me; everybody replies, even those who have not supped with him: That is all very well! You say this because you owe M. Véron twelve thousand lines! As if because one owes a man twelve thousand lines it were a sufficient excuse for saying that he has intellect! ”

“ I wish now for your sake—I honestly wish you had dealt me the measure I deserved, and my neglect would have stung you less.’
‘It did not sting me, François. I have no pride of that kind. Life is too full of pain. But I was sorry and grieved for Gabrielle’s sake.’
Had she not the right to hide the rest from him—simple-minded lady? who believed she had succeeded—since she so honourably strove to hide it from herself? Dr. Vermont pushed the child away, and came and stood before his sister-in-law. His imperious glance compelled hers, which she lifted timidly, apprehensively. ”

“ The memorable lines on spring in the second book are cast into the form of old poetry, but the basis of them is Epicurean energism, as in Lucretius' prooemium. Vergil's study of evolution had for him also united man and nature, making the romance of the Georgics possible; it had shaped a kind of scientific animism that permitted him to accept the language of the simple peasant even though its connotations were for him more complex and subtle. ”

“ Wermund, thinking that his feebleness was at fault, that he took the blows so patiently, dragged himself little by little, in his longing for death, forward to the western edge of the bridge, meaning to fling himself down and perish, should all be over with his son.
Fortune shielded the old father, for Uffe told the prince to engage with him more briskly, and to do some deed of prowess worthy of his famous race; lest the lowborn squire should seem braver than the prince. ”

“ Those early commentators who variously place the confiscation of Vergil's farm after the battle of Mutina (43 B.C.) , after Philippi (42) and after Actium (31) , who conceive of Mark Antony as a partizan of Brutus, and Alfenus Varus as the governor of a province that did not exist, may state some real facts: they certainly hazard many futile guesses. The safest way is to trust these records only when they harmonize with the data provided by reliable historians, and to interpret the Eclogues primarily as imaginative pastoral poetry, and not, except when they demand it, as a personal record. ”

“ That first summer I took Vergil and began Homer. I had studied these poets by myself already, but found many slack ends that only the aid and guidance of a professor could clear up. And, allowing for their narrow religious viewpoints, real or affected, in order to hold their positions, they were fine teachers—my teachers of Latin and Greek—with real fire in them.... Professor Lang made Homer and his days live for us. The old Greek warriors rose up from the dust, and I could see the shining of their armour, hear the clash of their swords.
Professor Dunn made of Vergil a contemporary poet.... ”