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One of the difficulties in the early days of the universities was to procure good MSS. In the Paris Faculty, the records of which are the most complete in Europe, there is an inventory for the year 1395 which gives a list of twelve volumes, nearly all by Arabian authors. Franklin gives an interesting incident illustrating the rarity of medical MSS. at this period.
Once upon a time, when a red lamp had been a novelty, and the power to write "M. D." after his ordinary signature a delicious dignity, a patient had been to him a prodigy, something precious for its rarity, even if it called him away from his dinner or ruthlessly rang him up in the middle of the night.
The display was really extraordinarily beautiful: and the particular forms and colors of the different flowers, the advantages of one over the other, and their rarity, gave at last occasion to a sort of conversation which appeared to get quite friendly; at which we others rejoiced the more because we saw the most precious old Rhine wine in cut decanters, fine fruits, and other good things spread upon a table in a neighboring bower.
Talk of good professed cooks, indeed! they are plentiful as blackberries: it is the good, plain cook, who is the rarity! Half a tureen of strong soup; three pounds, at least, of stewed carp; all the under part of a sirloin of beef; three quarters of a tongue; the moiety of a chicken; six pancakes and a tartlet, having severally disappeared down the jaws of the invalid,
They are just counters for careless writers to pass on to careless readers, and not always reliable as counters. We are all of us using these counters; they are convenient for the ordinary purposes of life, whenever the search for beauty and rarity and expressiveness may seem uncalled for.
He followed no one; he had the advantage of no trained criticism; because it seems that his only critic was his wife, and though Mrs. Shorthouse appears in these pages as a very courageous, loyal, and devoted woman, it is clear from the record that she had no special literary gift. The rarity of the thing is part of its wonder.
Crassus paid one hundred thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their real value.
Every one esteemed Pons with his kindness and his modesty, his great self-respect and respect for others; for a pure and limpid life wins something like admiration from the worst nature in every social sphere, and in Paris a fair virtue meets with something of the success of a large diamond, so great a rarity it is.
At last there met me an old gardener. of whom I asked about them and he answered, "O my son, this fruit is a rarity with us and is not now to be found save in the garden of the Commander of the Faithful at Bassorah, where the gardener keepeth it for the Caliph's eating." I returned to my house troubled by my ill-success; and my love for my wife and my affection moved me to undertake the journey.
Amongst the special treasures to be found there, mention is made of four figure-pictures, one of which is said to have been of Roman workmanship, and round in form certainly, as far as is known, a rarity at that time. Special mention is made of a window, evidently over the altar in the private Chapel, in which was represented the Crucifixion.
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